


Play Dead

by letterfromsilentheaven



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-11-08 05:16:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 71,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11074818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterfromsilentheaven/pseuds/letterfromsilentheaven
Summary: After learning the truth, 9S survives an attempt on his life that is nearly successful. As he recovers, he is forced to decide what's more important to him: His revenge, or his mind. [Endgame spoilers]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a ton of ideas for this story in my head for quite some time now, and it'll be nice to get them all out and onto the internet for others to hopefully enjoy. I really like this concept and I hope I am able to pull it off in a way that's really entertaining. Leave a comment and let me know what you think, I am always interested in hearing your thoughts.

The clearing was silent. They had come here on orders from YoRHa, to a little groove trapped between the dilapidated buildings and giant archtrees. Very little room for fighting, and no room for escape. 2B walked slowly beside 9S, dragging behind only a little as her heels brushed overgrown grass and kicked up dirt. She felt like a prison guard, taking the man in handcuffs down to the electric chair.

A fool's errand is what it was. Take the dog out behind the shed and then shoot him. 9S had made a terrible mistake, the same one he'd made what felt like a hundred times before. His curiosity, that damned curiosity, had gotten the best of him yet again. This one had survived for so long, gone for such a wonderful period of months without a single hitch.

She had no idea how he found out and she didn't care to know. She barely even knew WHAT he had found out. All she knew was that her time with this one was at an end, and she was almost proud of him for keeping it together so well in the short time since he'd learned the truth.

And yet, she was almost nervous. Normally when he learned the secret history of Project YoRHa, he immediately lost his mind with fury and rage and disappointment. This time, he hadn't. Some part of him must've hoped that nobody knew. That he'd been untraceable.

Of course, he wasn't. They knew immediately, and 2B got the kill order mere moments later. She just needed the right time to take him out. To take him apart. And now she had her chance.

As he realized there were no machines for the slaughter to be found here as the command center's orders originally stated, 9S too became aware of this. His eyes narrowed just slightly as he noticed that 2B was no longer standing beside him... but behind him.

"I'm so sorry, 9S." She whispered as she drew her arm back, poised like a cobra ready to strike.

In that instant, he became astoundingly aware of what was happening. Inside, he knew this was coming. It was her job. It was just orders. 2B was cold and clinical and that was just her personality at work, and this was an extension of it. There was no way she was going to let him simply walk away with what he now knew.

But he'd hoped she would have given him the dignity of at least facing him first.

As her sword jerked toward his spine, he spun. He drew his own in that instant, swiveling on one heel to face her. 9S' blade clashed with hers edge-first, knocking her stab off-kilter. It went wide of his body as he followed the swing through, and he stumbled back a few steps to put some distance between them.

9S' voice was incredulous. "So, that's it, then? You were gonna stab me in the back? Really?"

"You don't understand," 2B said, her arm still tensed, "it's not like that."

"I can't believe you'd do something like that." He grunted, suddenly full of a feeling akin to anger. "If you're gonna try and kill me, then face me."

To his surprise, 2B nodded. And to his chagrin, she rushed forward, unwilling to spend any more valuable time on words. As she dashed forward on a single footstep, she sheathed her sword like a samurai. 9S took his best guarding stance but she still broke his block when she whipped it over her head as hard as she could- harder than he thought possible. While he was reeling and only barely able to keep up, she got down to business.

2B's strikes were surgical, practiced, calculated. It sent a chill up 9S' spine. Whatever he thought he knew about her, it was wrong. This was not 2B, this was 2E. The cold, unfeeling robot designed to exploit every weakness necessary to get the job done. Watching her fight while destroying machines with her was intriguing. Watching her try to destroy 9S himself was frightening.

He held his blade with the flat end out, one hand on the hilt and the other along the edge. 2B cried out as her own swing clashed against it, sparks flying everywhere with a loud 'clang'. 9S held steady, his heels digging into the dirt as she pushed and pushed in an attempt to knock him over.

When he didn't give, she took advantage of his locked-up joints, retracting her sword and doing a lofty pirouette. He lowered his to chest-level and blocked again, parrying the move before it could come his way. His fists shook from the force of the blow but he still stood unmoved.

However, this was exactly what 2B planned for. When she finished her spin, so quickly he almost could not react, she drew her elbow back and then jousted the edge of her sword straight at him like a fencer. He leapt to the side, curling in his stomach and narrowly avoiding being skewered. She pulled back and struck again, and again, forcing him to back up as she crowded him. He deflected her piercing strikes, but then he held up his sword to block and nothing came his way.

9S drew in a breath, realizing at the last second that she'd gotten him into a rhythm and then held back to intentionally throw him off. Her teeth were gritted as she put her palm flat against the end of the hilt, readying a straight thrust right for his black box. In the split second he had to analyze the situation, 9S was only barely able to react. He threw his sword outward to stop the attack but he was too late. Sparks shot out again as her weapon glanced off the side of his but continued uninhibited.

He barely had time to gasp.

Her sword blasted straight through his midsection and came right out the other side, stumbling him onto his heels. 9S cried out in agony as he tipped forward into the blade, his own sword dropping as his hand went limp instantly. 2B took a step toward him, further entrenching the sword in his stomach. She'd landed just below the chest at a slightly diagonal angle, obviously having aimed her blow directly at his black box... perhaps out of some pitiful attempt at mercy.

2B put her hand on his shoulder and gripped it tight, and for a moment he thought she was about to embrace him. He decided he'd have liked that more than anything right at this moment.

With absolute misery lining her harrowed features, 2B just mumbled, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry this happened again."

"2... B..." 9S gurgled, blood spilling up his throat and out of his mouth in little dark red trickles. He was clutching gently for her hand, clasped so tight around her sword's handle that her knuckles must have been shock white under the gloves. When he found it, she did not stop him from wrapping his trembling palms around it.

"Just fall, 9S. Please." Her lower lip was equally trembling. "Please just fall."

It was so strange, he considered in his hazy fog, to see her this way. The sword going through his guts no longer hurt- his mind had buried itself in defenses to keep out the pain as adrenaline coursed through him. He was so focused on her expression, her posture, her defenselessness, to see her this way.

He cared for her dearly, even now, even with what he knew about her and YoRHa and all of it. To see her so broken looking would've made his heart jump out of his chest if he could still feel it. She was just shivering, mortified that she had been forced to slay him yet again. And he felt terrible for causing her such misery.

And then... he realized her words hadn't been a figure of speech, she literally was asking him to fall over. To drop dead. This beautiful creature that he cared about so much more deeply than partnership was asking him to just lie down and die for both their sakes. He felt his legs wobble and give out, and though he tried to fight it with every single ounce of strength left in him, it just wasn't enough.

9S landed on one knee, and after a single attempt to get back on his feet, fell over to one side and impacted with the ground softly. His breathing ceased and so did his movement, and then the only sign he'd ever been alive came from the blood still seeping out of the wound and down 2B's blade.

It took a moment before 2B let her shaking hands drop. She had to look away- even in death his mortified expression did not settle. He looked like he had died in screaming agony, and for all she knew, he probably had. If anything, she was glad he couldn't have expressed it, as it would have made her feel even more horrible.

"2B to Bunker. It's done." She said, and found her voice wavering. She stared at the ground as she awaited further orders, watching the pooling blood around 9S' body slowly eclipse the dirt and swallow up the pointed toes of her boots.

'It's just orders', she told herself. 'It really is just orders'.

Her frown became a grimace.

Did she really expect herself to believe such a lie?

   
= = =

   
Eventually, she walked away. From his static-filled, barely functional point of view he watched her go. She simply left her sword in his stomach, obviously too wracked with pain to bother trying to yank it out. She could get another one, presumably from the same place she could get another 9S. Somewhere far above them sat the Bunker, and 9S could almost hear the whole command center laughing at him.

He watched 2B slowly disappear into a tiny dot on the horizon, her body hunched, defeated. She'd won the meager fight he put up, and yet he was still the victor. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that it was just what she needed to do. She was a slave to YoRHa, he knew it now, and he felt so sorry for her. He probably would've said so, given the chance.

Maybe some other 9S had and it just made her feel worse. A whole legacy of former versions of himself, probably having said anything and everything to keep themselves from death by her hand.

He wondered if she would've even hesitated if he'd begged instead of defending himself.

9S could no longer feel 2B's sword in his stomach. He could no longer feel much of anything, really. His motor functions had completely shut down, and even simple thought was becoming more and more difficult. But something was bothering him as he tried desperately to do so much as writhe from his place there in the dirt. Some feeling at the back of his mind that he couldn't place. He involuntarily choked up more blood as he tried to squirm, to sit up, to do anything but just sit there and bleed out.

As his automatic system analysis concluded, however, he knew.

She missed.

By a fraction of an inch, she missed. The diagonal slant of her blade, having glanced off of his own, had cracked his ribcage, pierced a lung, the muscles in his stomach, and torn a hole straight through the flesh on both sides... but not his black box.

His eyes fluttered a few times. The signal was weak, so very weak, but it was there. Disconnected from the Bunker, from any help he could call for. Not like they would assist him anyway. He suddenly felt very alone, even moreso than usual.

Immediately he went to work, desperately searching his own mind for anything he could reroute to muscle strength. The adrenaline was still coursing through him even now as he laid limp as a ragdoll. Self-preservation suddenly mattered more to him than any feelings he could have had for 2B. His affection for her had dried up the moment her sword had skewered his body.

There was no time to think of that now, however, as he shut down every system available to him to divert the power to his arms. His sight went pitch black and his hearing cut to an abrupt whining static. His thoughts became noticeably slower and more sluggish. His body began searing with white-hot agony as he deactivated the tiny but powerful pain suppressing chip. He couldn't even scream, though he suddenly very much felt like it.

The latter gave him enough leftover energy to spare for his motor functions. Still blind, he groped around his midsection weakly for 2B's sword. His hands caught the blade and he slid them up and up what felt like miles until they wrapped around the handle. With a choking cough, he tensed his core, the muscles in his stomach becoming painfully taut. He doubted he'd have strength for a second attempt.

With an almost frantic sawing motion, his mind grew hot with fire and agony as he wrenched the thing out of his guts inch by inch. He could feel every little bit of the curved steel as it moved backward through his pierced meat and bone. It finally came out of him with a horrible wet sucking sound and clattered to the dirt beside his tired body.

9S rolled onto his back, hands pressed tight over the gaping wound. He was screaming now, though silently. His legs writhed and bent as he struggled for enough purchase to sit up. The ground was slicked wet with his blood, as was his lower body. Eventually, though, he managed. His back felt like it weighed a thousand pounds as he lifted it from the ground, and immediately one hand left his stomach to cover the hole in his jacket.

"Nnngghh..." He groaned, reactivating his pain suppressing chip as soon as he could be sure his body had enough strength in it to keep moving. He sat, hunched over, shuddering with aching lopsided breaths for what felt like hours. In reality it was less than a minute.

He blinked a few times as his sight returned, a thousand warning symbols and tiny readouts flashing in front of his eyeballs. He tried his best to ignore them, to glance between the lines of text to see the blood and the wound and 2B's discarded sword. Immediately his hands were scrambling for his satchel, which had thankfully landed just within reach. With a grunt he wrenched it open and began to dig inside for anything that could possibly help.

His fingers curled around a syringe full of staunching gel, which he yanked from the bag and drove into his stomach at full force. As soon as it was empty he threw it aside and grabbed another, and then another. The blood started to bubble over, slowing from a gush to a trickle as the wound began to seal itself.

As the bleeding came to a stop, the pain slowly did too, and 9S let his arms fall to his sides. His body was devastated on the inside in many ways, but the immediate threat was over. He couldn't go back to the resistance, nor to YoRHa, but this was fixable. He could make it through this. Though he currently felt like screaming for multiple reasons, he was going to survive. He'd make sure of it.

He gazed at 2B's weapon, still slick and bright red with his bodily fluids, and wondered what to do now.

   
= = =

 

Atop a hill, 9S sat, occasionally weakly grunting as the pain in his side thrummed. He was doubled over still, trying his best to ignore the firey sensation. He needed medical attention- though not that urgently anymore, and he was currently scraping his mind for any ideas on how to get it.

He was completely cut off from the Bunker's servers. Hitting the call button met with no response. Most of his visual interface was locked down, throwing big flashing permission errors upon his attempted access. It didn't seem like they could remotely interact with him any longer either, however. He counted his blessings there, at least.

But that meant he was totally alone. Surely YoRHa would warn the resistance that he'd gone rogue. No resistance android could possibly fight him and win- especially not now that he had 2B's sword -but he hated the thought of having to harm them. After all, it wasn't their fault they were caught up in this pointless fight. Not like anyone would believe the truth if he told them anyway.

The truth... it still made him shudder involuntarily. It was all just pointless. The continuation of the human condition. Fighting for nothing in particular because there was nothing else to do. And 2B... Even in spite of the revelation, he still had feelings for her. They sickened him, made the hole in his gut ache, but he couldn't let it go.

"Damn it..." He chuckled to himself for feeling so weak.

What did it matter anyway? His life as he thought he knew it was over now. He and 2B had encountered other rogue androids on their journey together, and they fought for their lives till the last breath. Until now, he thought he would never understand why.

YoRHa was the ideal. A bastion of hope, peace, and order. A sword of Damocles dangling over the heads of all android-kind. Wandering samurais who solve problems. Holy templars who smite the forces of injustice against the graces of God: Humans.

It was all bullshit. Just a sham.

Maybe it was time for the sword to fall.

Of course, that was a pipe dream. They had forces beyond his comprehension, and he was just a lone boy currently struggling to keep his lunch down. Not that he'd eaten anything recently, but the phrase was still apt. He stood up slowly, hand still clutching his stomach, and leaned against the tree he sought respite under with his opposite arm. YoRHa wouldn't help him... the resistance COULDN'T help him... so what was left? Other deserters? A slow, painful demise?

"Machines," he murmured to himself. Of course. Now that he knew androids were made of machine parts in the first place, it made a lot more sense to him to just scrap them for whatever he needed. He could repair himself with the crap he yanked out of them. It wasn't like there was a drought of the things. Their technology couldn't compare to the standard-issue YoRHa android kit, but it was certainly better than dying.

9S could barely walk, but he still had his hacking and that mattered much more. Over the next couple hours he stumbled through the modern jungle looking for a fight to pick, winding through crumbled buildings and overgrown streets. Along the way he tried to assess what he'd do if he ran into another android, as that did happen semi-frequently during his exploits with 2B. The first thing they'd probably ask would be why he was out alone, followed by asking why he was walking so funny. He didn't have a good answer to either question yet.

Eventually, after a couple of close calls with big groups, he found a few machines just milling about by themselves. They were of the lowly stubby variety, doing nothing in particular as they wandered here and there. Easy prey.

His hacking module took a few seconds to kick in, first giving him fuzzy static before bringing the picture into focus. Even so, the chroma was out of alignment and that made it a bit hard to see what he was doing. He supposed it was a side effect of YoRHa pulling the plug on him.

Despite the harsh noise clouding his vision, he wormed his way inside the trio of machines' minds and took control of their systems, shutting them down with a snap of his fingers. Easy.

"Got 'em." He muttered, and then slid down the ridge to meet their lifeless bodies.

Wedging 2B's sword between their plates like a crowbar, he pried them open, piece by piece. Pitch black oil dampened his sleeves as he tried not to sever anything important. Only after he took the main body piece off of one of them did it occur how gruesome this business really was. Beyond the cylindrical body were metal organs, bones, blood and guts. Their metal was so old and rusty, poorly refined and made of dirty steel. Maybe aluminum. They really did look like they'd come straight from a production line, churning out knockoffs without any regard for consistency.

Then again, for all he knew, he was the same way.

Groaning, he realized he'd have to cut himself open again to actually get at the damaged parts of his body. The plates YoRHa units were comprised of weren't supposed to come off. No prying himself open as he had done to these things. He shivered then at two prospects: First, that of having to basically dissect himself in order to get at his inner parts, and second...

He stared at the machine's corpse with a sigh. These rusty, unrefined parts were going to go inside him. Become a part of him. His body's standard automatic repair system would absorb them and make them a true part of his anatomy. Where his cracked rib ended, a machine rib would take its place. Where his pierced lung lay deflated and unusable, a machine lung would bring it back to life.

9S shivered again.

He took occasional nervous glances at his surroundings to make sure he was truly alone. His scanning module was partially busted just as his hacking now was, but it sent out pulse wave after pulse wave and returned no movement and for the moment that was all he cared about.

2B's sword felt like it weighed a thousand pounds in his hand. They had the parts he needed, alright. Hell, the androids and machines had remarkably similar innards save for the big bulbous head. With chagrin, however, he noted that they only had the bare essentials. Raw bits and pieces to replace the ones he'd damaged. In order to repair himself to full functionality, not just restore his basic movement and ability to continue living in this hell-on-Earth, he'd need real YoRHa parts.

The only way to get YoRHa parts... would be to take them from YoRHa androids.

Thankfully, not every one of their numbers was as careful as 2B. There wre bound to be corpses of his fallen brethren strewn in the strangest of places, unable to be touched by machines who sought to take them apart and harvest them. For the first time, he was happy that YoRHa devoted precisely none of its budget to corpse retrieval. He'd stood over his own body and plucked chips from his own brain several times in the past and it never got less creepy to see, but at least now it served some purpose.

For now, though, he had more important matters to attend to. He dragged the machine bodies out of the clearing, into a nearby alley where he could shield himself from prying eyes. He shed his jacket and the shirt underneath, leaving his gloves on to prevent his hands from becoming slick with blood and oil. The wound was a red, gnarled mess, covered in orange seeping gunk. He deactivated his pain receptors with a sigh.

"Well, this is gonna suck." He said.

  
= = =

  
When 9S resurfaced from his stupor, after his impromptu surgery concluded, he was unsure how much time had passed. He couldn't be sure of much other than the fact he had at some point reactivated his pain receptors, and that he was very, very sore. He stared down his nose at the Y-shaped incision on his front, passing between his pecs and down his stomach nearly to his bellybutton. 2B's sword was once again drenched in red, propped up against one wall of the alley.

He pushed into a sitting position and drew in a sharp breath as the soreness grew red hot. At least it was just hitting him with a dull hammer now instead of stabbing him with a butcher knife.

Then, he raised his head up just a little.

He breathed in again. Exhale. Again. Exhale.

"Huh," he murmured. The lung he'd patched up with the machine parts was working perfectly. He no longer felt the loose rib shuffling around inside him either. The only pain he really felt came from the initial wound- still scarring over -and the incision he'd made on himself.

He carefully stood, then traced the surgical cut with one finger. Thankfully he'd had the good sense to jam more staunching gel into himself, this one was going to heal much more evenly. It might not even leave a scar on his flesh. His next goal was to find some YoRHa scanner parts to replace his broken hacking and scanning modules, but that could wait until he'd recuperated just a little. His motor functions were still lacking, to say the least.

As he put his shirt and jacket back on, scooping up 2B's weapon, he wondered how long it would be before YoRHa came after him. Surely they already knew he was still living- and if not now, they would be able to detect his black box soon. After he finished goring up the local corpses he decided he'd have to find some way to mask the signal, but how he could accomplish that was currently beyond him.

He thought again of the YoRHa androids he'd fought alongside 2B. They were desperate, frantic. They made mistakes and were killed for them. At the time, he thought it was justified. Now he knew otherwise. YoRHa's hit squads were terrifying, black-cloaked monsters vaguely modeled after humans. Designed for death and murder and cleansing the weak with brutal fire. Soon he'd be staring down the edge of their blades, the barrels of their guns. He could fight them no problem- as long as he didn't have to see their screaming faces -but 2B... he desperately hoped he'd never see her again.

Would YoRHa dare to send her to reclaim her sword?

Would he have to kill her with it, this time?

Would he have the strength to even try?

Right now... he couldn't say.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments so far. I was unsure if this idea would fly so well in the general forum of opinion because I've noticed a pretty huge influx of 2B/9S and post-concert-ending stories lately. I wouldn't necessarily call it oversaturation or anything like that, just a trend I've become aware of. Unfortunately for the general forum of opinion, I've already written a 2B/9S story, and so now it is time for sadness! As usual, leave a comment and let me know what you think. I'm always happy to read your opinions of my writing.

It took a few more hours for 9S' legs to stop feeling like jelly, for more than one reason. It hadn't really dawned on him until just that moment that YoRHa was going to be gunning for him. He was one of the best scanners on the whole team, of course he was invaluable to them. They'd capture him and hold him down and suck out his brains, suck out the knowledge of their dirty secrets until there was nothing left but leaky gray matter.

A dramatization, of course. In reality they'd probably just take him apart and reset his memories before dumping him back on 2B. Running around with her was nice, but he desired it no longer now that he wasn't doing so in ignorance.

But as he wandered the cracked streets, weaving around plants pushing up through the holes in the concrete, he couldn't help but wonder how much 2B truly knew. Or how much any of them knew. The report detailed that only the most relevant personnel were to retain the information in the files, and surely that would include E units, right..? They had to know what they were doing all that killing for.

Or maybe not. He knew now that YoRHa had a long and winding history of lying to its troops.

He carried 2B's sword in his hand as he walked. It wasn't his, so he couldn't sheath it across his back or at his hip. In fact, he could hardly do anything with it besides using it to jimmy open machine corpses. It was practically a sharp walking stick. If she had turned the sword over to him, that'd be a different story, but it was still technically under her ownership and so he couldn't use it for anything other than idle swinging. It was cumbersome to carry around, but he refused to let go of it. It was special to him now.

9S sighed. He was so used to following orders that he had no idea what to do now that he had none. The whole world would be his oyster until YoRHa came to pry it open and steal the pearl inside for themselves. He hoped that hanging around here in the city would give him an advantage, however: The machines were plentiful here thanks to the system of tunnels running deep down below. They were too numerous and too twisting and too far down to be mapped out by automatic topography scans, and so for all YoRHa knew there could be thousands of machines running around in them doing who knows what. Operations generally stayed away from this area for that reason.

Which was why he found it suspicious that he and 2B had been sent there. Of course it was a trap. He had just never suspected it was meant for him.

And speaking of traps, he eyed the nearby towering buildings- encroaching on either side of him now -very cautiously. He felt sort of like a cowboy walking through a ridge, gun at the ready in case he should be attacked by bandits from on high. Of course, he had no gun, just a semi-useless sword and his lack of dignity. Were anyone to take potshots at him from up there in reality, he'd be swiss cheese. He hunched his shoulders just a bit and kept walking.

He decided then that his goal would be to figure out how to mask his black box signal. YoRHa would have a much harder time tracking him down if they had no idea where on Earth he was. He couldn't stray too far on foot, but it'd leave him with a pretty large area to operate in potentially unnoticed. Plus, he didn't like the idea of being killed in his sleep by one of the bondage gear wearing freaks.

Freaks.

A day ago, they were his friends.

He shook his head, deciding not to dwell on that. Maybe they'd always been freaks and he just never had the proper perspective to see it. Either way, his feelings on the matter wouldn't stop their swords from coming at his chest and so they were irrelevant. 2B would be proud.

Back to the matter at hand. The black box signal was broadcast strongly enough that it could be read and geographically pinpointed from space. It was a hell of a thing, surely more than wearing a tinfoil hat could block. He supposed he could just take his black box out and leave it somewhere, but he wouldn't be able to stray very far from it and that worried him. And there was no way for him to stop the signal, considering the black box was literally keeping him alive.

He was rubbing his chin now in thought, staring at the ground as he aimlessly walked. He could... voluntarily EMP himself. That'd shut the signal down for sure, but then again, it could also fry his brain. He could try and take the black box apart to get at its inner mechanisms and strip out any wireless chips. He could infect himself with a virus in the hopes it'd remove YoRHa's blood from his veins-

No, no, no. He had to do it without hurting himself. There were no more backups to restore to, no more saving memories for future 9Ses. He couldn't just throw his body away because there were a million more waiting at the nearest transport station anymore.

Stopping the signal simply was not an option. Which meant all he could do then was block it... but how? It'd take some very strong resonance. He decided he'd ruminate on it more as he scoured for YoRHa android corpses to scrap.

For some reason, the silence was almost quaint. Even though the situation that led him here was disturbing to say the least, it was nice to not be constantly bothered by HQ for check-ins, or 2B telling him to shape up. It felt good to not have the constant ringing of updating objectives in his ears, an influx of data streaming in at a million miles a minute. It was like his nose had been clogged up with phlegm and he'd finally cleared it. He could breathe again.

A few minutes later, he was in a desolate corner sandwiched between buildings. Here sat maybe a half-dozen torn apart machine corpses, green with rust and decay. They'd been here a long time. Just a stone's throw away, propped up against the wall, sat a deceased YoRHa android. Their skin had completely melted away from the months- maybe years -since their demise, to the point where he couldn't even tell what gender the body used to be. It was just the framework now, the hard plastic shell that made up the exterior. Some of the black muscle and ligaments still hung loosely from it.

But the one thing he did recognize was its stature. It was small, like him. Short, thin, light-footed. A scanner.

"Jackpot," he murmured.

And then he immediately felt bad for saying it as he realized he was going to have to yank the body's head off to get at the core chips inside. He stared at it, half expecting it to come to life and scream in agony like something out of a horror movie, but it stayed unmoving. Somehow, that was worse. It was almost like it was judging him. He wondered what led this android to its last stand here in the dead-end alley. Maybe it was separated from its B-unit. Maybe it was off on its own and made an error of judgment, thought the alley would lead out to somewhere else. Maybe it was damaged and fleeing. Either way, its fate dropped it here at his feet... and he wasn't about to let the opportunity pass by.

He went to hook his fingers underneath the jawline, to yank the head right off of its shoulders, but thought better of it. Taking apart machines like a surgical dissection was one thing, but doing exploratory surgery on a fellow android filled him with dread. A sense of sorrow wallowed up inside him. He wondered if someday he would be like this poor soul, trapped in an alleyway and fighting until his last breath was stolen from him by his captor.

9S dropped to one knee as he'd seen 2B do several times in the past. The afterlife didn't exist for androids, but it was still customary to give one's well wishes to the body's owner. Were they still out there, whether under a different designation or the same, they'd feel the gesture... or so the stories went. One hand over his heart, he lowered his head gently. With his eyes closed, he drew in a deep breath as he thought out a small and lowly prayer to the corpse. He then stood, letting his hand drop limply, and stared for a moment longer. Hopefully whoever used to belong to the body felt how apologetic he was for what he was about to do.

He cried out in surprise as the head came right off the shoulders with a loud 'snap' on his first tug. He stumbled backward with the skull in his hands, landing hard on his rear. Sick dark red gunk- the last of the thing's congealed blood -dribbled out of the neck stump. He clutched it by the cheeks, glad that no flesh remained and it was simply worn smooth. A shudder rippled his back as he sat up and crossed his legs.

Sure enough, the scanning module was still intact. There was a spot for a hacking module on the motherboard lining the brain, but it was empty. Either it had never been implemented, or someone had come along and taken it. He might have to find a broken pod and take it from there instead. For the moment, though, he had what he needed. The chip slid into the slot on the back of his neck with ease and a moment later a burst of harsh noise filled his ears.

He cupped a hand over one ear, sinking low with an annoyed grunt. Eventually the high-pitched whine subsided, though, and he was left in silence once more. He shook his head as the color returned to his vision. He always hated installing new module chip upgrades back on the Bunker.

Immediately, there was a problem. He hadn't noticed because of the damaged scanning module, but now that his was working properly, he could detect movement. His head went over his shoulder as the alleyway suddenly seemed to stretch the length of a football field. He dropped the head suddenly and about-faced, walking back out onto the streets just a bit too fast to be casual.

As soon as the buildings were no longer blocking his line of sight, he knew he was in trouble. Far away down the road, thankfully still so far he couldn't actually see them, a trio of androids was headed his way. He didn't know who they were, or their purpose, but he wasn't about to be seen by them. A sneaking suspicion told him however that their arrow-shaped marching stance meant they weren't friendly.

They weren't friendly, and they were coming for him.

Panic started to settle in as 9S realized how defenseless he was. He had no ability to hack, no tools of any sort, and was armed only with 2B's currently useless sword. All that AND he was still recovering from recently being run through with the very same weapon. He didn't stand a chance against a YoRHa assassin squad in this condition. And yet, if they really were coming after him already, they had to know his exact location to the Nth degree. There was no way he could hide from them for long.

But that didn't mean he couldn't still do so in the short term. His mind immediately jumped into action, desperate to formulate a plan as he stood stock-still in the middle of the road. The high ridges above him were suspect once more, but now for a different reason. Now he could be the bandit, and they the cowboys. Of course, he had no musket or arrows, but attacking wasn't his goal anyway. He just needed a chance to escape.

Back in the alley, a dilapidated fire escape sat along one wall. He scaled it, swallowing heavily as the initial ladder's rungs bent and groaned with his weight. Rust flaked off in droves as he rounded the stairs, ascending floor after floor as fast as his tired legs would take him. A chill ran through him as it rattled with his clattering boots, rattled just like his nerves currently were. They were almost upon him now, and he still had basically no idea what he was going to do. He dreaded playing it by ear, but it was starting to seem like he wouldn't have a choice.

As soon as he reached the rooftop, he dove for cover behind one of the walls lining the edge. Crouched down so that he couldn't be seen from the street, he sent out a pulse wave to scan for the approaching androids.

"Sonar intercepted." One of them said, her voice cold and low. 9S hissed in frustration- the module wasn't calibrated properly yet. They were much closer than he'd initially thought.

"Where did it come from?" Another asked, turning her head toward the first. They stood less than a block away from the building he was hiding atop, facing each other in a little huddle.

He peeked up over the ledge, just enough to meet his eyeline, to see the first android shake her head. They were all clad in YoRHa combat uniforms, carrying one-handed machine pistols limply in their arms. Standard issue stuff; enough to tear right through an android's hard flesh with only a minor amount of concentrated fire. He mentally patted himself on the back, as this meant YoRHa considered him dangerous even though as far as they knew he was still mortally crippled.

But there was no time to think about that now, as the third android turned and faced his direction. He ducked his head back below the roof line, breathing heavily and hoping they wouldn't be able to locate him.

"Any movement?" The first android said to the third.

He shook his head as well. "Negative."

The second android, who seemed to be the team's leader, straightened her posture. "He has to be here. Stick together and check the buildings."

9S squeezed his eyes shut. He was suddenly paralyzed with fear for a reason he couldn't quite understand. And yet, he felt he got the gist. Dying by 2B's hand was one thing. She was cold, sure, but not cruel. Combat androids... they literally felt pleasure from the thrill of fighting. The thrill of the hunt. Even if they didn't know it consciously, cruelty was in their nature. The cold wind blowing over him confused him, but he was very much aware of why he felt it.

There was a solid 'thud' as one of the androids booted in the door to a nearby building. Their footsteps remained in sync as he listened to them clear the place out, floor after floor. His body was firmly rooted to where he sat now, joints locked. His eyes darted across the horizon line, frantically searching for a way out. He realized, mentally noting how much of an idiot he was, that he'd trapped himself up here. If they came up this way, he was screwed. MAYBE he could make it to one of the opposite rooftops if he jumped. But it was a hard 'maybe'.

"Clear." The first android said as she returned to the ground floor. The others nodded in agreement.

"Is he still here?" The second asked, turning her head to face the third.

A bright yellow glow only 9S could see surrounded him as the third android did a detection pulse of his own. Must be a fellow scanner model. He cursed his rotten luck, stiffening slightly as the wave of energy washed over him. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong time to adjust his posture.

"Wait." The third one held up a hand to stop the others, who had begun to cross the road to check the opposite building.

His finger traveled up and up and up, and 9S could almost feel it as it landed right upon him.

"He's up there."

The second android was instantly at his side. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "I can see him."

9S sucked in a breath as the second android nodded. Obviously the hiding was over now. He put his hand over his stomach; it was aching again. A dull pounding to let him know he was in danger, that his fight or flight response was kicking him in the ass to get him moving. And yet, he couldn't. Fear had halted him completely. He was trembling as he clenched his fist, sitting limply at his side.

He turned over. His mind raced as he sat there and shook, listening to their boots as they slowly approached the building in a wide line. It was now or never. He had to think quickly.

Despite his brain screaming at him not to, he pushed to one knee. Grabbing the ledge with his quaking hands, he stood.

"Hey!" He cried out, staring down at them. "Up here--"

"Contact!" One of the androids yelled, immediately yanking her weapon into her hands. 9S ducked back down as gunfire rattled over his head, bullets flying at mach speed toward his position. Thankfully his height advantage had thrown off her aim or else he might have a fresh hole in his forehead.

'Stupid,' he chided himself. 'Stupid, stupid, stupid. They know you're up here and now they're gonna kill you.' But then he told himself to shut up and save it for later, as he now had a plan... sort of. There was no guarantee it would work, but it was better than just waiting for them to come upon him and turn him into swiss cheese.

He poked back up, his whole body this time.

"Up here! Yeah, that's right, up here!" He waved his arms to get their attention. The first android, hands still tight on her gun, took aim again. The others backed up to her position, watching 9S as he ran around the side of the ledge.

She fired again, and he held his hands over his head as he ducked, continuing his brisk jog around the corner. The others had drawn their guns now too, though they were still readying to blast away. By the time they'd drawn a bead on him, though, he'd run around the side of the roof and disappeared from view.

"Follow him." The second android motioned with two fingers on her free hand. "Extract and amputate." The three of them formed a close-knit line and advanced on the building.

'Don't go in the front,' he thought as hard as he could. 'Don't go in the front. Please.'

"Fire escape, on the left." The scanner said with a nod toward the alley 9S had run off in the direction of.

The leader grunted. "Good eye. Advance."

He gripped 2B's sword tighter in his hands, swallowing as he crouched near said fire escape. He listened to them enter the alley, kicking over the discarded machine parts as they went. For a moment, he wondered if they thought anything of the dismembered android corpse. Inside, he hoped they hadn't even noticed it.

When the last of them got hold of the ladder, he got to work. The footsteps grew closer as they rounded the same stairs he had previously, dangerously close now as they ascended. Gripping 2B's sword tight in one hand, he placed his other on the solid bolts connecting the fire escape to the wall. Wedging the sword between the bolt and the rooftop, he planted his foot against the concrete and strained.

He grunted hard with effort as his aching shoulders screamed at him, but there was a loud 'pang' as the bolt hit its maximum pressure and shot off into oblivion. The rusted metal groaned as the beam came free.

Instantly the footsteps stopped. "What was that?" One of the androids asked.

They stood stock-still as 9S scrambled for the opposite edge, the other bolt holding their platform in place. He was grunting in time with his leverage now, working the sword like it was a tire jack against the bolts.

Then, just as the second one exploded from its restraint from the force, the androids' leader made a wordless noise.

"Back down! Down!" She yelled, and they about-faced, but it was too late. 9S shoved the top of the staircase hard with his shoulder, boots struggling for purchase and kicking up dust as he piled his weight onto it over and over.

They all stumbled as it came free of the wall, metal groaning as 9S gave it one final heave. It clattered against the opposite building, cracking the concrete with an angry 'crunch'. The three androids toppled, one of them falling over the side but the rest steadying themselves and making for the bottom.

9S took his opportunity, standing up straight and making a beeline for the opposite end of the roof. Thankfully the adjoining buildings that formed the alley were not far away, and with a single dive he was able to make it over the tiny gap.

He rolled, but was stopped before he could get to his feet. His wound was bleeding. He cringed as pain shocked him, but there was no time to deal with it now. He could hear them shouting to go after him, but they'd have to either round the whole block or go through the building to be able to reach him now. Unless they'd brought a bulldozer to tear through the wall... he was safe for the moment.

Unwilling to slow down yet, however, he made a dash for the roof access stairs and wound down them as if he were flying. He could swear his feet only hit the stairs once or twice. When he emerged onto the street and continued his all-out sprint as far away as his legs would take him, he realized that the ground had never felt so soft before.

9S ran like a bat out of hell until his lungs were screaming at him and then some. He had to get far, far away from here. YoRHa could track him, sure, but he knew how their operations worked. He was fully aware of how stingy they could be. They wouldn't send new troops until these were long dead or otherwise occupied, and so all he had to do now was lose them. Thankfully, it seemed he already had.

The crowded city had bled out into a spiral of veiny side streets, the remains of a suburb. Single-floor homes, near identical save for the years of damage splintering them to pieces, lined both sides of every street. An urban sprawl. Visibility was high here but he didn't much care at the moment, he was relatively sure he'd shaken his pursuers and his body needed a break.

He slowed to a stop in the middle of the road, his body becoming limp as he shifted gears. His breath was absolutely ragged as he bent over, placing his hands on his knees. His entire body ached, not the least of which his stomach wound. It throbbed angrily against his body to let him know it was still there and still pissed off. If androids could sweat, he sure as hell would be doing so right now.

He wiped the bangs from his eyes with a rough palm, ran his fingers through his hair and took in the cool breeze on his flesh. It was nice, drove away some of the intense heat flushing his features. His pulse was pounding even still. He swallowed dryly, then continued to pant. It was all he could do for the moment.

One of the houses on the block was open, the door sitting several feet away in the yard. Dragging his feet like a zombie, 9S wandered up the cracked driveway and past the front stoop. The inside was practically the same as the world outside; all of the furniture had basically completely rotted away, leaving steel frames of couches, splinters of wooden chairs, moth-eaten drapes hanging over gnarled and peeling paint.

But as he collapsed right in the middle of the floor, he decided he didn't much care. His stomach screamed at him as he fell down right on it, and he chided himself for being so careless even in his exhaustion. Rolling over onto his back, he pulled out another syringe of staunching gel from his satchel and jammed it into his gut. Eventually he was gonna run out of those, and then he had no clue what he was going to do.

It was strange to him how adrenaline worked. Until now it'd just kept pumping and pumping through his body, keeping him stumbling along for as long as there had been danger. For almost an entire day now he'd been running around by his lonesome, tired and aching and intermittently on the brink of death. And yet it was only now, when he was relatively sure he was safe, that it all came crashing down on him. He had no worldly idea how 2B was able to function like this for multiple days at a time.

As his eyes fluttered, the image of being murdered in his sleep by combat units once again flashed in front of him. Their leather masks betraying the look of disdain on their features. Disdain for the dirty traitor, the betrayer to the cause of YoRHa. The cause nobody knew, or at least nobody understood. The ultimate act of condemnation, his final chance to spit in their faces, lost as they plunged their swords through him and killed him before he could even feel it. He had to trust that it was just his imagination running wild as it always did, creating colorful pictures that he desperately hoped were untrue.

9S had read once that humans- when they still existed, of course -would consider problems in their lives as they drifted off to sleep. Miraculously, the answer would sometimes form while they slept, and they'd have a solution when they awoke next. He decided to devote this time to thinking about how to mask his black box, just in case. It was a long shot, but then, long shots were starting to become the norm for him. One by one, his systems shut down and he entered rest mode. He hoped he'd be safe when he emerged, but if not... he'd certainly fought his way out of worse so far today.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the break, I kind of got burned out on writing Nier fanfiction for a while. Now I'm back though and ready to inflict more melancholy on you than ever! I hope you enjoy, as usual please leave a comment if you do.

When 9S cracked his eyes open after what felt like a thousand years of rest, he found he could not move.

Initially he thought it was just tiredness eating away at his processing power, his brain awake but his body still asleep. But as his eyelids opened a bit wider, and he tried to sit up...

Panic struck him. His eyes darted around as he tried to move anything, even a single muscle. This was just as bad as being awakened by YoRHa soldiers. No, worse. If they found him now, not only would they kill him, he'd be AWAKE while they did it. Something must have gone wrong in his boot sequence. Some process that didn't start. He cursed his own turning gears and screwed up his face in concentration.

He took a deep breath, as best as he could in his position on his back, and dove into his mind to try and figure out what was going on. Immediately warning symbols flared up right in his face, letting him know that, yes, he was having severe startup issues. He needed maintenance, badly, but obviously he no longer had a way to get it. Through the still-quite-fuzzy static he was barely able to make out the problem he was having and went in to fix the problem the only way he knew how.

He shut down and restarted his motor functions, practically counting the milliseconds as they ticked by before they came back online.

Nothing.

With a frustrated grunt, he hit it again. This time, he got the green light. Immediately his muscles were aching as they contorted with shock, a wordless cry shooting up his throat and out of his mouth before he could stop it. Pins and needles prickled his arms and legs, his core burning as he sat up and immediately began shaking himself out.

"Guh..." He groaned, rubbing his forearm with the opposite palm. He tensed and flexed and massaged his sore body, but the sensation took its sweet time going away.

'Okay, note to self,' he thought, 'no more sleep mode.'

After all, he couldn't be sure if he would even be able to wake up in the first place. He'd have no hope if some critical process somewhere failed to start. He would be trapped in rest mode forever until the YoRHa goons found him and ended him, and he wouldn't even know it happened. The thought terrified him almost as much as dying screaming did.

When his legs had stopped feeling like jelly, he managed to stand. The dilapidated house was exactly as he'd left it, still covered in dust and shattered glass. Thankfully it seemed he'd shaken his pursuers, though they were no doubt still on his trail. That scanner they had in their troupe would prove to be an excellent tracker.

He scooped 2B's sword off of the ground and used it as a walking stick while his aching muscles were still complaining to him. Leaving the house and the harrowing wake-up call behind, he stepped back out onto the streets.

As he picked a direction at random and started walking- though conveniently said direction faced away from where he'd been chased from -he realized that he had an answer to his conundrum. Somehow, his rest had given him the time for thought he needed. With a scoff, he thanked the humans for their silly idioms. It seemed so obvious now.

If he could repair his hacking module, then he could attempt to close the ports the signal broadcast out of his black box from. He wouldn't even have to touch the thing itself, just the parts of him through which the signal was trafficked. Of course, he had no idea where such a bit of code would be located, but it wasn't like he was really pressed for time as long as he could escape his pursuers.

His pursuers... 9S could only wonder how close they were on his tail. His limbs felt like they had weights tied to them, still, and so he didn't much feel like exerting himself. He thought of the rogue android A2 and how her body looked to be falling apart at the seams, and wondered if someday they might have matching damage.

He wondered what she was doing right now. Were he able to track her down and explain his situation, would she join him? Or perhaps the other way around? Some kind of understanding between them, their own private YoRHa fan club. 'That'd be a hell of a thing,' he thought. It was a pipe dream, of course, but he did suddenly find himself wishing he were an earlier model with more primitive tracking functions. Certainly would make getting away from YoRHa's hit squads a bit easier.

With a frustrated grunt, he stared up at the big yellow orb in the sky, ever unmoving and silently judging him. It left purple radial spots in his vision as he blinked, giving it his best 'and what are you lookin' at?' expression. He needed to find more scanner corpses to take hacking module parts from, but he had no idea how to begin looking. YoRHa corpses were all over the place, but they could be of any kind, of any age, from any production run. He needed one that matched his own specs as the poor headless corpse he'd found in the alley did.

Then he had another epiphany- that made two for the day so far. "Oh, yeah..." he murmured at the sun, who said nothing, urging him to go on.

He could just go find one of his own corpses.

9S reached ahead of his walking pace and pulled up his internal data storage. There was an incredibly loud burst of static in his ears as he did so, and he winced as the red and green hues shot out of alignment and then back in time with the sound fading. He'd be very glad when this was fixed.

Every YoRHa unit had a full log of where and when previous bodies had been lost, likely to make retrieval easier and to send data on dangerous hotspots to the Bunker. His own and 2B's had to be a hundred miles long at this point. Many of the entries on the list had been long since corrupted by erroneous data backups, no doubt intentional to keep him from finding out about 2B slaying him. With a shudder, he noted that his recent skewering was not on the list.

He scrolled up and up and up through the list, dating back months, trying to find one which was not a series of red X's or otherwise already retrieved. 2B was always very diligent about it- just a part of her 'waste not, want not' attitude he supposed. Though, she had a lot more practice standing over 9S' corpse than he himself did by now, that much he knew...

Squinting at one of the marked-off entries, he noticed a subtle flickering of the text. Examining it closer, it seemed it'd only been half-corrupted. He wondered if it'd always been like this or if the recent jolt to his systems had shaken things loose. The thought frightened him a little. Even his faulty hacking module took care of the corruption easily, and then he had an unretrieved corpse to go find.

It was strange to him that just this single entry was corrupted. Everything else was in order, in its proper place and file. A tiny, irritating voice at the back of his mind told him it was a bad idea. It very well could be a trap, a plant seeded by YoRHa long ago, to draw him in and capture him should he ever go rogue. After all, they knew him about as well as he knew himself.

But then again, how well DID he know himself? He was unsure if he even had gone rogue before. It certainly could be a possibility, and a wave of dread washed over him as he wondered if there might be even more 9S' out there as bitter and disgruntled as he now felt. Vying for revenge, all of them, and unable to change a damn thing. After all, if he had gone rogue before, being back with 2B as he was meant he'd failed to escape their clutches.

And maybe he'd be the one to change that. There were a whole lot of corrupted entries on that list they now had to own up to.

Now was not the time for hand-wringing, though. The chances of the body still being there were slim, given its age, and the chance of salvageable parts being present even less so... but what choice did he really have? It was all he had to go on. If it ended up being a trap, he'd run away again. Simple as that.

"Simple as that," he mumbled to himself, as if hearing his own voice say it would make him actually believe it.

  
= = =

  
_In a forest clearing, threaded deep within a gnarled wood packed so tight the sky only shone through in little slits, 9S sat. He listened to the breeze ruffle the millions of leaves on the thousands of trees and groaned in pain. As he leaned back, his hair clung to the stiff bark of the tree he sat against. He tried to sit up further than his awkward slant, but his clothes were slick with blood and he could only manage to shuffle in place._

_He coughed just once. "So... that's it, then?" He said to 2B, his voice hoarse._

_She nodded with a grim half-smile. "Looks like you lost."_

_"Looks like I did," he mumbled with a tiny grin of his own. His nose- at a slightly crooked angle thanks to a wayward sword pommel -was dripping blood down his chin and onto his chest._

_2B just stared at him as the smile fled from her features._

_"Can't say I didn't try, though." He grunted, again trying to sit up. His sword was embedded in a nearby tree, knocked away and sent flying by an all-star swing from 2B._

_She folded her arms. "You hardly touched me."_

_"Still tried."_

_"You did."_

_2B's posture shifted, and she lowered her arms and turned to begin walking away. Instantly 9S perked up a bit, digging his heels into the dirt to sit up straight as an arrow._

_"H-Hey... Where are you going?" He asked. "I thought you were going to..."_

_She stopped, head drooping a bit as she faced away from him. "No. Not this time. Your wounds will take care of it."_

_"Oh..." He murmured, his face growing sullen. "O-Okay."_

_2B was silent. He wondered for a moment if he should be upset that she didn't plan on finishing the job- as if the whole situation wasn't maddening enough already. He never imagined her to be much of a slave to YoRHa but he supposed first impressions meant nothing when androids were simply made to die._

_She spoke again, interrupting his thoughts. "I can't."_

_"Finish it? Or-"_

_"I can't get this close to you, 9S. Never." Her voice was haggard, tired. He could tell her expression was one of absolute misery just from her tone. She hung her head and started to slowly walk away, scooping her sword off of the ground as she went._

_As she disappeared into the treeline, she looked back at him only once. "But I don't regret it," she whimpered, and then she was gone._

  
= = =

  
The dense thicket made triangulating the corpse much harder than 9S would've liked, and his already tired legs were not appreciating the rough terrain. He noted that the forest would provide a good chance to lose anyone who decided to follow him, though he was still holding out hope that it wasn't a trap.

It was dark in the forest, sunlight streaming in only through the meager gaps in the bustling limbs. The wind rustling the leaves was almost unnatural, swirling with an ominous anger. He didn't like the feeling prickling the back of his neck one bit. After some stumbling through underbrush and silent cursing of muddy ground, he came to the clearing he sought.

9S found his lower lip trembling. His hands clenched into fists nearly involuntarily as he laid eyes on it. Pulse racing, he cautiously approached the body.

He lay slumped against a tree, covered in vines and overgrowth. The grass grew tall around his legs, leaving a 9S-shaped imprint along the waving green tendrils. His hair was matted to his forehead, dirt and blood leaving dark reddish-brown stains down his skin. The clothes were moth-eaten, reclaimed by nature, but otherwise mostly intact. He was brutalized, deep gashes marking the flesh of his arms and an eerily familiar long thin stab right through the pit of his stomach.

9S blinked a few times, blankly staring.

It.

It lay slumped against a tree. Not he.

He was crouched next to it, shaking like a leaf in the forest's whooshing wind. It was a corpse, and it'd been that way for a long time judging by the vines that had curled into its gaping mouth.

9S was struck with a feeling of self-awareness. Obviously he'd looked at his own corpse before- the death log was a hundred miles long for a reason -but this was somehow different. This was the first life, to his knowledge, that he'd seen taken by 2B's hand. This 9S never stood a chance. He gently trailed a finger along the dark orange triangular wedges in his flesh, long-since having dried up of their bodily fluids. She'd been so cruel to this one. He'd been carved up as if by a butcher.

But there was no time to think about that now as a shiver ran down his spine. The paranoid feeling he was being watched, as he crouched in this lonely corner facing away from the clearing, struck him and struck him hard. His back was exposed and it was unnerving him.

To resolve this issue, he grabbed the body by the shoulders and peeled it from the tree, grunting to avoid having to listen to the crunching sounds of dry blood and bark coming loose. He brought it to the center of the clearing, trailing vines and rotted leaves behind him as he went.

But then he dropped it and fell onto his rear as a revelation hit him. With disdain, he realized that in order to get at the chips inside, he'd have to remove his own head and open it up. He groaned in frustration at the prospect of dissecting himself.

Thankfully, the corpse was so mottled with grease and gore and wear that it barely looked like him anymore. Although, maybe that wasn't something to be thankful for- it meant that his rigmarole with 2B had been going on for a very long time. That said, it didn't really make him feel better anyway. He doubted anything could at this point.

He clenched 2B's sword tightly in his fist, trying to decide how to go about it. Yanking it off as he did with the other android was his first thought, but he doubted he had the strength considering how much more intact this corpse was. He could saw it off, but that might cause a short and damage the circuits if any electricity still ran through it somehow. He placed his other hand on the hilt and pushed to his feet then, with a single nod.

And as he held the sword high over his head- both his own and the body's -he took a moment to appreciate the bitter irony of using 2B's sword to do his dirty work. It made a high pitched ringing sound akin to a tuning fork as it sliced through the air, and with a dull thud not unlike swinging at a tree trunk, the deed was finished. Somewhere high above him, a flock of birds made their exit, marking the moment with poignancy by their fading cries.

9S tried hard not to think about what he was doing as he pried the back panel, now hanging loose, off of his own head. Sure enough, he found himself a kid in a candy store. His head's inner parts were completely untouched, the micro-milimeter-thick slits in the dermal plates doing their job dually. There was barely even any dust covering the chips. With his thumb he smudged away what little was there from his OS chip. His hands were still trembling.

One by one, he exchanged his own half-broken parts with everything this 9S had in working condition. Satisfaction grew on his features as, piece by piece, his systems came back to life. The hacking module was a little bit out of date by some versions, but it would do very nicely. He dropped the head and stood, hovering over the body awkwardly for a moment.

It felt wrong to just leave it like this, face down with its head disconnected by a few feet and pillaged for spare parts. The wind seemed to push him away from the corpse, to tell him to get out of dodge before trouble arrived. But he just stood, arms at his sides, staring at it and its pockmarked flesh and ragged clothes and exposed spine. How could 2B do such a thing to him? Had she no compassion in the slightest? She seemed to show a little bit in what she assumed would be his final moments... but seeing how harshly she'd done in this one, he wondered what she would have done if he'd shown any signs of life.

He looked around the clearing a bit, eyeing the shattered blade of a sword- no doubt his own -buried almost entirely in a nearby tree. Surely he'd put up a fight, but knowing 2B, it wasn't nearly enough. He wondered if he even so much as scratched her. That was one thing they had in common. Maybe this 9S, too, didn't have it in him to swing back.

A wide-eyed, blank stare lined his face as he stood over the body. It was like he was being drawn into the pitch black darkness of the fabric, through the moth-addled holes and into a deep dark pit that trapped him in thought. 2B's sword grew heavier in his hand as he gazed onward, head cocked only slightly. A deep pain settled in his chest. How could she betray him like this? How could any of them?

His breathing grew a bit heavier. Any sympathy he had for her plight was gone now, that much was certain. If they met again, it would be as enemies, and he vowed he wouldn't end up like this one.

"I can't go back," he said to the forest. "I'm not going back to that."

The trees rustled loudly and uncaringly in response.

  
= = =

  
He emerged from the forest with an exhale of relief. It had been just himself and the trees after all. Yet another glitch in his system that turned out to provide exactly what he needed. Part of him felt lucky. Another part of him scoffed.

Lucky. Sure. He'd won the damn lottery.

A sloping hill at the edge of the forest led down to a very old dirt path, wide enough to be a road for a human vehicle. Must've been an access road to someone's home at some point- he'd gone far enough away from civilization now that even the old suburb had faded into the horizon. Leaving the YoRHa operations area in general seemed like a good idea; he hadn't seen any machines for hours. Having to fight them off would be impossible with a useless sword, he doubted he'd even be able to penetrate their metal.

9S followed the road at his relaxed pace, walking to wherever it may take him. Hopefully far, far away from YoRHa, far enough that he could find somewhere to hide while he ruminated on masking his signal- still priority number one.

On both sides, the forest surrounded him. The path stretched on and on into the hazy eternal afternoon fog, curving very softly around a wide corner. It was peaceful in a way, but also isolated.

He sighed. It hadn't dawned on him until just that moment how utterly lonely he felt. Granted, with 2B and his co-operatives being so cold to him all the time, he'd always felt at least a little lonesome, but now he at least knew the reason for that. This, there was no reason for. No reason for all of the violence, the killing, the scrounging in the dirt to survive. It was all pointless, and as far as he was aware, he was the only one who knew as much.

He was completely alone, and now the entire world was out to kill him.

A frustrated frown came over his face as he made note that the sensation was not unfamiliar.

He brought up his hacking module, deciding to work as he walked. He looped 2B's sword in his belt to free both his hands- not like it'd stay slung across his back if he tried at the moment. It clanked against his thigh with every step, a subtle reminder that he was still carrying her with him even despite the bitterness.

It felt good to be back in top condition... or, as near as he could get for the time being. His side was still throbbing and he doubted it would let up until he found some real medicinal aid. Soon it'd start aching again and he'd need to jam more staunching gel in to quiet it down. His last couple of syringes of the stuff felt heavy in his satchel. Either way, his fingers waved and tapped away as if his hacking had never been broken in the first place. It still felt so natural to him.

"Ah," he said, eyebrows rising. There it was, a simple list of all of his network access ports. They were marked with numbers totaling in the dozens of digits, dots and dashes spread intermittently throughout. To his chagrin he realized he had no idea what any of them meant.

And so he was now inbetween a rock and a hard place. Deactivating the wrong one would be like cutting the wrong wire on a live bomb. The vast majority of them were unnecessary, and most of them connected to YoRHa, but he was aware that a few on the list were required for his continued functioning. Everyday androids didn't have such restrictions, but being a YoRHa model meant special proprietary operational protocols.

He could strip out as much as he liked, and if he got lucky, stop all traffic from him to YoRHa entirely. But he also needed to be careful not to cut off his connection to the Bunker's servers or else all of his personal data would be instantly lost. No matter what he did, they would always know he still lived. The most he could do was stop them from knowing where.

While he would be fine with that outcome, he didn't like the odds. There were several throughputs on the way to the Bunker that would need to be deactivated, and only one or two crucial ones... but the more he blocked, the more likely it'd be that he'd cut the wrong metaphorical wire and be dead in the water.

Frustrated, he bookmarked the relevant section of his OS chip and closed the panel. Playing dangerously with fate was one thing. He refused to tangle with luck. After all, the lottery he'd won was more of a curse than a blessing so far. No sense trying to double down.

But at least now he knew it was feasible, or at least possible. Now his goal had changed some. Masking his black box signal was next to impossible, but deactivating it no longer was. He just had to figure out where to learn which buttons to push.

He rubbed his chin, not liking the thought that was now crossing his mind. The easiest place to get the information would be to take it from a higher-ranking YoRHa android than himself. And, conveniently, he had three of them currently coming after him.

9S opened his map, pleased to see not a trace of static marking its geography now, and about-faced to head back toward the city. Unfortunately he had to dance with the YoRHa hit squad again. He decided then that it'd be easier if he came to them instead of the other way around. Getting the upper hand would be as easy as taking them by surprise. The only problem being, they had numbers.

What scared him more than that, however, was that if they did have the information he needed... they wouldn't give it up without a fight. And he didn't like that one bit.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please leave a comment and let me know what you think of this chapter, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. Enjoy.

"You need to check your fire next time."

"The sights weren't zeroed properly. Whoever used this one on the last op didn't reset it." 11G looked up from the parts of her weapon, which she'd just finished stripping, sitting cross-legged on the ground.

31E folded her arms. "Regardless, you wasted valuable ammunition and the Commander would be more than displeased if we had to return to the Bunker for a resupply."

"With all due respect, captain, I'd rather fire and miss than not fire at all." She said with only the slightest air of indignance. In truth, she was a little embarrassed though unwilling to admit it. Gunner-class soldiers were as rare as diamond chips in the current production run, having been decommissioned long ago. Those that remained only were so because they either requested to stay in their role or otherwise couldn't function with another designation.

All she received in response was a scoff. 31E was used to leading around combat units by the nose, but mass production YoRHa soldiers needed such instruction, being far more simple-minded. She expected better of standard units like her current traveling partners. Craning her neck toward the third member of their pity party, she changed the subject. "Any movement on your radar?"

27S wrung his hands idly. "Still don't have a lock on the signal."

She sighed. "Widen your scanning range. He probably fled the city." At his quiet nod, she turned back to 11G.

"And that's not my point," she continued, picking up their conversation where it left off. "I didn't authorize you to fire. You need to obey my orders or we can't function as a team."

11G slapped her hands on her knees, her posture stiffening. "Captain, I respect your leadership and all, but I know what I'm doing. I don't need to remind you that the only reason you two have guns is because I do."

Frowning deeply now, 31E sat more upright as well. "Be that as it may, you only shoot when I order weapons free. Do you understand?"

There was a poignant 'clack' as 11G slotted a part back onto her weapon. "Yes. I do."

"Good."

27S perked up. "Hey... Not to interrupt you two, but I think I've got something."

31E was at his side immediately. "Where?"

He enlarged the screen hovering in front of his eyes, pointing skyward at a single black dot on the topographical map. Upon being tapped, it zoomed in just slightly, showing a bit more detail- the outline of a forest.

"A couple hours ago there was a corpse retrieval right there, the body of one unit 9S." He turned to look at her, trying to read her complicated expression.

"How many hours ago?" She asked, squinting deeply at the pulsing black circle.

27S shrugged. "Uh... About two? Why?"

But she had already turned away from him, pulling up her own visual interface to send out a call to the heavens above. "31B to Bunker, come in."

Immediately the call was answered by her operator, resting one hand on her chin. "Ah, 31B. Bunker here. Any news on the mission?"

31E nodded, her brow furrowed. "I need you to scan for movement at these co-ordinates," she said, fingers hard at work transferring the data to her friends in deep space. "The target, unit 9S, retrieved his own corpse there no more than two hours ago."

The operator somewhat lazily righted herself, tapping away. "No problem. Looks like... there's been no sign of unit 9S in that area since-" she halted, sucking in a breath through her teeth as another operator's torso passed by behind the camera.

With her second scoff of the day, 31E shook her head. "What is it?"

"It's nothing. Just keeping classified info classified." She blinked absently a few times, then returned to the scan. "There's been no sign of him in that area since around the time he interacted with the body. Seems there was a burst of activity from his signal right afterward, heading back toward the operations area."

31E's eyebrows raised involuntarily. "He's coming back to the city?"

Her operator nodded. "Yup. That's where his predicted trajectory puts him. The data's on its way."

"Much appreciated, 31B out." She closed the channel without awaiting a response and turned back around, rubbing her chin in thought.

11G had sorted her faulty weapon out by now, having just finished putting it back together. She slipped it back in its holster and gave their leader an inquisitive look.

"Well?" She asked, one hand on her hip. "What's the plan?"

There was a moment of silence as 11G and 27S exchanged glances. The captain adjusted her helmet, staring at the weaving red prediction line dancing between buildings. "For whatever reason, he's decided to backtrack. Maybe covering his trail. We're going to cut him off before he can pass us."

Vengeance in the name of their earlier embarrassment was burning in her eyes.

"This time, he's not going to escape."

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
9S' posture was hunched, nervous, as the buildings grew tighter together again. He was suddenly feeling as if he should make a stop at the machines' amusement park, swipe one of their jester hats and stick it on his head. He certainly did feel like a fool at the moment.

'What am I doing?' He lamented to himself. 'I was practically home free.'

But was he, really? He considered the lengths he and 2B occasionally had to go to in the past in order to pursue fleeing androids. Granted, they never left the operations area and spent most of their time playing sleuth, but still. Some of those soldiers put up damn good fights before going out. He intended to do the same, only he still had nary a clue how.

In any case, he knew they would be tracking him again very soon. His pace was deliberate, keeping his ears open for any sound bouncing off of the concrete asylum walls surrounding him. Specifically a trio of footsteps, but also the shuffling of metal. As long as 2B's sword remained inactive, he remained defenseless- from close range anyway.

Having weapons of their own made long distance impossible too. He needed to get the drop on them, somehow. After all, his last surprise attack went over swimmingly. The height advantage of his last attempt didn't seem like it did much besides provide an escape, so he decided he'd stay on the ground where he belonged this time. Other than that... he only had one idea, and it was a long shot. It'd require cold and calculated patience, and bringing the fight to them.

Anxious knots twisted in his stomach as he considered that either he wouldn't make it out of this alive, or they wouldn't. The thought of having to kill his fellow androids, even in self defense, instilled a strange deep fear in him. The only thing he knew he had left that separated himself from the machines was his moral obligation to not turn on his own race. But said obligation was currently being stretched very thin. There really was no other option. He swallowed heavily and found himself carrying his posture just a bit more stiffly.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
31E stalked silently, leading her troops in their arrow formation down a long, empty street. Her subordinates were following close behind, neither of them paying as close attention as she. It annoyed her to no end. Vigilance was important. 9S was proving to be a particularly slippery target, and to let him get away merely by zoning out at the monotony of searching for him... it was not an idea that pleased her. At an intersection they stopped in sync, the two women turning their heads toward 27S. He wordlessly pointed left, leading 31E to nod.

"Approaching the intercept point. Take cover." She murmured to the others.

She pressed her back against a building lining the corner, motioning for 11G to advance. She did so, crouching behind a nearby mailbox, weapon at the ready. 27S was last to join them, ducking past 31E to hide in the open doorway of the next building over. For a few seconds they held their position, waiting for further orders or just movement. When no scruffy-haired androids suddenly appeared, 31E motioned for them to move up.

And so it continued. The three of them slid from cover to cover, remaining as small and quiet as possible to avoid alerting 9S to their position. Of course, were he above them he'd know immediately, but 27S' overhead scans showed no life besides themselves. With every exchange of cover he did a pulse for movement, finding nothing but rustling grass and the gentle dancing of streetlight poles in the wind.

Halfway up the road they came across the remnants of a YoRHa mission. Machine corpses lined the debris-filled street, crowding the sidewalk with their unmoving presence. Tatters of cloth and other litter dotted the area- no doubt someone less professional than they having a field day with the creatures. Whoever was responsible, they were long gone and didn't even bother cleaning their mess up after.

What concerned 31E more, however, was the lack of room to maneuver. She bit her lower lip, peering around the pillar she stood against with squinted eyes. They could double back and go the long away around, avoid having to walk through the field of uprooted concrete and dead robots... but they might miss the projected window to intercept. And then again, it was called a 'projected' window for a reason, it could be rendered inaccurate simply by the target choosing a different path.

"Damn." She grunted.

27S' eyes flickered between their leader and the obstacle. His voice was a quiet whisper. "What's the plan, captain? Are we going for it?"

She peered at him from behind her goggled mask, her eyes dull and brow furrowed. He didn't share her look of concern, it seemed, and it bothered her. Did these people have no sense of self-preservation?

With a sigh, she nodded her head up the street. "Move up. But do it slowly, and don't take your eyes off of the rooftops."

27S' frown said enough about his disagreement, but he was too smart to poke the sleeping dragon on that order. The three of them crept along the edge of the sidewalk until it was too blocked by debris to proceed. A large slab of uprooted concrete, surrounded by the dirt spread in all directions when it burst, provided ample cover. Stepping over any stubby machine foot soldiers they came across- so as to avoid kicking one and making a racket -they crept on their merry way.

Breathing heavily and anxiously, 31E's neck was craned skyward. She refused to be humiliated again in that way. If he was watching from on high, she'd see him. 27S' scans could not detect him if he was not moving, which meant he still very much could be observing them.

Several seconds of silence passed as they walked through the graveyard with bent knees. Not a single movement besides their own.

11G spoke up, though not very loudly. "This is pointless, he's obviously not here. We should be going quicker." She said, disgruntled.

"When you become promoted to squad leader, you can decide the pace we move at." 31E's voice was bitter. Her disappointment at the lack of 9S' appearance was fairly audible.

"I'm just saying, we're going to miss him if we keep moving so slowly. You're the one who's so dead-set on not letting him get away."

31E spun to face her. "Does the danger we're in mean nothing to you? If we don't move with caution, he'll have the upper hand in a combat situation automatically."

"He's just one boy."

"And he's a YoRHa android, which means he's just as dangerous as we are."

27S cleared his throat. "Hey... is now really the time for this, you guys? We're on a mission here."

Now 31E's frustration was on him. "And you, 27S. You need to understand that passivity is going to get you nowhere. Without action, we're not going to succeed, so both of you be quiet and keep moving before he gets the drop on us--"

>>> [DETONATE]

A fiery chain reaction of explosions sent the three of them sprawling in every direction. Next to 31E one of the machine corpses glowed a bright yellow and then blew up in her face, knocking her onto her back. Suddenly the graveyard of machines became slightly less empty as the first explosion overheated the rest of the corpses, turning them into giant sticks of dynamite. Shrapnel flew in all directions as the other two were similarly blown off their feet, the force sending 27S' smaller body flying into a nearby wall. 11G felt her gun fly from her hands as she landed hard on her side and rolled, coming to a stop as bits of dead machine and scrap metal pelted her back, and then she lay still.

More explosions shook the area, loud and red and yellow and booming, sending plumes of black smoke grabbing for the open sky. One by one the machines detonated like gas pumps, white-hot shards of metal bursting in all directions with thin wispy trails of smoke of their own. After the final machine was destroyed, the loud rumbling slowly ceased, leaving only the crackling of flaming wreckage and melted, smoking asphalt.

A full minute passed before 9S was willing to emerge from his hiding spot. At the other end of the street, he was tucked between two pieces of waist-high rubble, just low enough to peer out from without being seen. His trap had worked flawlessly. The black smoke somewhat clouded his view of the carnage, but he could see their three bodies lying totally dormant in various compromised positions. Immediately his stomach jumped up his throat and his chest grew tight as he gazed at their unmoving forms.

He'd done it. He'd killed his fellow androids. Though they were clad in black like walking angels of death, these faceless, cold creatures... they still felt so connected to him. 9S was trying as hard as he could not to think about it right now- and failing -because there were much more important matters to attend to.

Looking around, suddenly paranoid of backup arriving at the cacophony of explosions, he slipped out of cover and began his slow approach. A wispy gray plume was rising off of the squad leader's body, the leather and metal of her combat armor singed roughly from being so near to the blast. If the heat hadn't killed her, the internal shock certainly would have, bouncing around in all that padding.

Craning his neck and squinting as he entered the smoke, he kept his eyes firmly trained on her. She would have the information he needed. Lying on her back, one arm limply thrown across her body and the other akimbo, she looked like a discarded ragdoll. Her sword had been dislodged and was laying beside her idly- he lamented that it would be useless to him now that she'd been killed. Then he lamented his own lamenting, wondering if he really should be so disrespectful to them. They were just performing their assigned duty, after all.

He gingerly knelt beside her body, cocking his head as he examined her goggles- one eye now sharply cracked. The helmet completely hid her face, turning her into an enigmatic, featureless entity. He went to take it off, fingers hooking into the neckline, but thought better of it. Dismembering a long-dead android was fine. Dismembering his own corpse was something else, but still acceptable. Dismembering these soldiers... He didn't think he'd be able to live with himself.

Instead, he decided to try hacking the information out. Pulling up his interface, he went to access the same information he'd taken from his own body. If the data streams were still active this soon after their deaths, he'd be able to read where they were leaving from without yanking her head from her shoulders. The ports would be clearly marked with the amount of data flowing through them, and thus, he'd have what he came for.

But something bothered him as he was pulling up the data. In the corner of his eye, a pulsing green color caught his attention. A very telltale green. Her finger twitched then, and 9S berated himself for not checking their vitals before walking right up. Of course she'd been feigning death.

Suddenly, she returned to life with a vengeance. Her limp arm drew back across her body and forward again, punching 9S in the chest. He let out a breath of wheezing air, stumbling back and out of his crouch. In one fluid motion, 31E rolled to the side, yanking her sword into her hand and performing a wide swing. 9S frantically hopped backward, almost tripping on his heels as his arms flailed for balance. The blade smacked the ground with a hard 'clang' that reverberated in his ears.

He immediately skittered backward for distance as she used the blade as a crutch to get to her feet. He made note of one leg wobbling just slightly, possibly broken, but swallowed dryly as she managed to stand. She shook with righteous fury, her anger visible in her tiger-like posture. Her hair had started to come loose from the helmet and was flowing behind her in oily strands. It was a bright blonde. 9S drew 2B's sword, as if it could actually help him, holding it outward in both hands.

Rushing forward despite the pain in her leg, 31E took aim at his neck, ready to chop his head right from his shoulders. She stood taller than him in her heels, more imposing and filled with anger and embarrassment over the falling apart of her mission. She growled wordlessly as she swung in a horizontal arc, but 9S held up 2B's sword to cut the move off before it could reach his flesh. It was a successful defense but it certainly had its costs. To his chagrin, his block bounced right off and sent both of them reeling with a shower of sparks. Without the added oscillation of the blade, it was just a simple sword, leaving him surprised it wasn't broken right in half from the force.

She recovered faster and swung again, using the momentum from the deflect to carry her quicker than he could move. Unwilling to try blocking again, 9S rolled under the attack, landing hard on his back and tumbling heels-over-head. 31E closed the gap fast, crying out once more as she pivoted to stab at him before he could dodge.

He thanked his lucky stars as she proved just barely too slow, missing him by mere inches and once again striking the concrete. As soon as he was on his feet, 9S was fleeing. There was no point in fighting them if he could manage to escape instead; the element of surprise was the only thing he had going for him and now that he'd lost it... his chances of survival were much slimmer, to say the least.

She was not willing to let him go so easily, however, whipping around and hurling the sword like a javelin in his direction. 9S looked behind him just in time to see it flying at his back and dove diagonally, flopping onto his stomach as it embedded itself in the ground just a few feet to his side. He groaned weakly as his now skinned elbows singed with a red hot ache, turning his head to see the sword de-materialize and appear again in her fast-approaching possession. How he wished he still had that ability.

31E was on him again, ready to stab him right through the spine before he could leave his knees. The image of 2B, poised like a coiled snake, ran through his head. Pivoting on one heel, 9S whirled around to ward her away. His blade met hers and there were sparks once again. This time he'd swung with such force that his parry was successful, knocking her stab off-kilter and leaving her open. But as he had no way to counter-attack, 9S got back to his feet and deigned instead to knock her down so he could retreat. He shoved her hard with his shoulder and she stumbled back, but stayed standing. He'd have to try again next time he got an opening.

With a harsh groan, 11G was reaching for her weapon. Her vision spun, internal balancing circuits knocked loose from the force of the blast. Through the smoke she could see 31E and the target exchanging blows, the latter obviously fighting to the last breath. She gritted her teeth as her outstretched shoulder ached, desperate to get ahold of the one thing she had left to her name. Her whole identity lie in her firearms, and she was determined to live up to her designation no matter what.

After a moment of blind reaching, she felt her fingers curl around the grip. Struggling to pull it back to her body, she pushed the barrel of the machine pistol into the ground, arm wobbling as she tried to get up. Slowly she ascended to a hunched position, then her knees, then one knee. The captain had obviously gained the advantage now, pushing the boy out into the middle of the street and sending him reeling. 11G grunted weakly. Balancing her elbow on one knee, she tightly grabbed the foregrip with her opposite hand and took aim. The opportunity had presented itself. It was her chance to prove her worth.

9S' heel caught on his shoelaces as 31E kicked him hard with one pointed boot. He lost his balance, his arms outstretched once more as he desperately tried not to topple. 'Fall over and you're dead,' he frantically thought. 'Don't fall over. Do not fall over.' But it seemed he was trapped now. Even if he did manage to recover, 31E had taken her sword in both hands and was winding up a massive baseball bat swing right at his jugular. His eyes grew wide and manic as he helplessly flailed, ready to bring his own sword up to meet hers in a final attempt to stop her.

He didn't get the chance. The loud clatter of gunfire rang out from down the street, echoing off of the encroached buildings as light and heat rippled through the smoke. 11G emptied her magazine, wordlessly crying out as the recoil sent angry shocks of pain through her shoulder. Her wobbly vision caused her to shoot wide of center mass, but it was more than good enough. 9S cried out in agony as superheated bullets riddled his forearm, practically turning it into swiss cheese as hole after hole sent blood flying in strings. 2B's sword dropped from his suddenly locked-open hand, clattering to the ground. Pain and fire shot through his body as the force of the volley carried him in a full circle, sending him sprawling to the asphalt in a heap- 31E's swing followed through regardless, slicing through the air with a high pitched whistle.

9S' vision was tinted red around the edges, the sound in his ears a mere dampened whine as the pain grew intense and shocking. His mouth was trembling and agape as his opposite hand flew to his limp shoulder, now soaked with red. He lay on his side, one leg curled in and the other digging for purchase as he writhed. He shouted at himself to get up but he couldn't, it hurt too much for him to move a single muscle of his own volition. 31E stared for a moment at 11G, who gave her the smallest of dizzy nods.

A single low rumble entered 9S' ears as the whining diminished just slightly and his hearing returned. A strange electrical crackling, a jittering sound that sounded so strange and yet so familiar. He'd heard it a thousand times before as 2B unleashed her wrath on the machines, and sometimes his own sorry form.

It was her sword- When it'd been thrown from his hand, the pommel had connected right with the ground. Something inside it had been jarred loose from its improper use throughout his fight for his life. Obviously it wasn't meant to be used without being activated. And now it was.

31E raised her blade above her head with both hands, ready to finish him off. Her fists were clenched so hard her knuckles were straining, teeth bared with rage and eyes wide and frantic. Just as she reeled back to end him, arms straight above her head, a white flash caught her eye. 9S reached out as far as he could with his still-working left hand and grabbed 2B's sword into it. His grip slicked due to his own blood, all he could manage to do was turn over, but it carried him with enough force now that the sword was awake and alive.

He swung in a huge arc just as 31E went for the kill, his back impacting hard with the ground as the handle once again left his clutches. He whipped his head up to see the pointed sword bearing down on his chest... but it wasn't moving. 31E was just standing there trembling, and in the instant a shower of red cast over his lower body, he noticed with horror that he'd cleaved her almost completely in half.

9S scrambled backward with his legs and remaining arm, screaming in terror as she coughed, a burst of red bubbling up from her throat covering the inside of her mask. She staggered for a single step before her arms dropped and she fell limply, face first, to the ground. Dark red lifeblood pooled around her as she twitched for a moment and then lay still, stone dead.

He fought to catch his breath, chest heaving as the horrible sight embedded itself in his mind. He shook like a leaf in the wind, unable to move a single muscle as pain continued to radiate up his arm and through his core. All he could do was watch her bleed, the almost comically large gash across her stomach leaving her body in one piece only by mere threads. How he wished she'd died from the blast. Funny as hell, he wished he were dead at the moment too.

An anguished cry from his left alerted him that he may soon fulfill that wish. 11G had gotten to her feet, throwing her emptied weapon away and yanking out her sidearm, a long dagger. She was sprinting at him at high speed, the handle turned backward in her tightened fist, ready to stab at the beast's heart before it could recover.

9S tried to get to his feet but his legs just weren't moving, totally locked in their bent position. She was upon him then, closing the gap between them in record time. Her other hand was flattened against the edge of the handle as she drew it back to entrench the blade in his flesh. He caught her eyes too- they were just as frantic as his own.

He rolled to avoid the stab but his arm was completely limp, flopping behind him as his body pivoted. 11G swung madly, just barely catching it at the point where his inner forearm met his elbow. The damage ensued by the gunfire caused it to tear right off of his body, lymph and metal bones and electronic parts flying off in pieces behind him. He completed his dodge, once again sprawling limply as the pain intensified.

Immediately his other hand flew to the jagged stump, clenching hard around the shredded upper arm that remained. He stretched his back, shuffling back as far as his legs would take him to get away from 11G's recovering form. He watched 2B's sword get further away as he scrambled back, his only line of defense now gone. His head was swimming with dizzying heights of anguish now, fighting to stay awake as his gutted side swung dull hammers against his pain receptors.

11G raised her dagger just as 31E had, now hovering over him. He was completely helpless. It was over. 9S realized with resolute fear that he'd lost. Soon he'd be returned to 2B's side with no knowledge of any of the past few days' events, and another 9S would have his hopes of freedom dashed to pieces and stomped on. He squeezed his eyes closed, awaiting the pain, praying for it to at least be over quickly.

But again just like with 31E, the pain never came to him. He cracked one eyelid open, head raising just slightly. Behind her, a big pillar of smoke had extended forward, billowing out to the sides as it dissipated. 9S slowly willed himself to gaze upward and was screaming anew as he saw the point of a sword sitting barely a foot from his face. It was extended forward all the way through the back of 11G's neck, and 9S tried very hard not to listen to the horrible gurgling sounds she was making.

Just behind her, body pressed to 11G's, A2 grunted with disgust. With one fluid motion she tossed the girl to the side, yanking the sword out of her neck as she toppled. She watched the body fall, then stared idly at the red fluid dripping slowly from her blade, seemingly paying 9S no mind.

'It's you,' 9S wanted to say, aghast. 'Thank you so much,' or perhaps 'please don't kill me'. But all he could do was shake, jaw totally loose, lower lip quivering as white hot tears clouded his eyes. The brutal nature of his fight had just dawned on him, eyes flickering between A2's angelic black and white form and the dark red corpses laying mere feet away. He was completely shellshocked, unable to move a single muscle- even the pain in his half-an-arm had receded into the back of his mind for the time being.

She turned her attention to him, then, giving him a look over. Nearly his whole body was covered in gore, clothes bloodied and soaked and ripped. His hair was matted to his head. His eyes were unreadable beneath the blindfold but he looked more than a little panicked besides. She looked much the same as ever, old and dusty and outdated with bits and pieces worn down to the black muscle beneath here and there. Staring down at him past her nose, she seemed to be casting some kind of divine judgment. It frightened him all the more.

She hovered over him, sword still tight in her fist. Wordlessly, she leaned forward slowly, almost leering at him now. She tightened her lips into a hard line, brows descending just slightly as she peered down at him.

And offered him her hand.

9S stared dumbly at it, still totally unwilling to move. He reacted as if his brain was rattled, just looking at her extended arm without a word. A2 was not one for ginger touches, refusing to stoop down to meet him. Either he took it or he didn't, it meant little to her as long as he stood up and explained what in the world was going on. But then she felt a little tinge of embarrassment as for the first time she noticed the extent of his battle damage.

"Oh, shit," she murmured, retracting her hand and exchanging the sword to it, instead offering the one he could actually take.

Before he could, however, she stood bolt upright as she idly glanced over her shoulder. At the edge of the fog stood 27S, completely stock-still, frozen in fear. He had been standing at the edges of the battle and idly watching it unfold, unwilling or perhaps unable to help- he was just a scanner, after all. He didn't even have a sword. Without a word, he acknowledged the losing proposition before him, visibly gulping before backing away and fleeing for his life. She watched him go, rounding the corner at the other end of the street and disappearing from view.

"What a coward." She murmured.

When she looked back, she felt a tug as 9S gingerly took her hand. His glove was so slippery she could barely hold onto it, but with some effort she was able to tug him back to his feet. He stumbled into her, his body curling toward her as if expecting an embrace. She kept her hand tight on his, but otherwise did not move.

After a silent moment, he dropped her hand and returned his to the stump at his right. It had stopped bleeding and was now steadily oozing deep black sludge, no doubt the fluid enabling movement of his elbow and shoulder joints. Androids could usually repair their bodies on the battlefield by just reattaching their own- or others' -limbs, but it hinged on retaining the fluids necessary for movement. Without them, there was no point. His arm would never properly work even if he stuck it back on.

"Ngh... Th-thank you." He mumbled through gritted teeth, his voice as wobbly and unstable as his balance. He was making a conscious effort not to cry out in pain, though there was not much he wanted to do more at the moment.

"Yeah," A2 nodded once. "You going to live?"

9S wanted to scoff at the bluntness of her question. It was a good one, regardless. "M-Muh... Maybe." He said, shaking as he pulled up his visual display with his remaining hand. Obviously, everything was in the red. Losing a limb wasn't as life-threatening of an injury as the stomach wound, but he'd still need to find medical assistance very soon. There was no way he had the tools to fix this on his person at the moment.

A2 didn't respond, but her eyes did narrow slightly at his metered affirmation.

"What are you... doing here?" He grunted, wondering just where his guardian angel had descended from. Heaven was the obvious choice, but then, angels didn't usually emerge from pitch black smoke.

A2 surveyed the battlefield- the destroyed machines, blown open like tin cans, the android corpses, the debris and blood and 2B's sword. "Heard a bunch of racket," she murmured in thought, "came to see what was going on."

He coughed. "That's it?"

Her response was curt. "Yeah. You gonna do something about that?" She gestured to his arm, lying several feet away with its fingers still locked in an outstretched claw.

"There's... no point. It's done for." 9S muttered, he too staring at the discarded limb. Then he realized his satchel was across his back, on the right side. He couldn't reach it with his left hand. "Please... in my bag, there's s-some adhesive and... staunching gel."

She eyed him cautiously, her expression dubious. But then she nodded again, rounding him to pull a roll of high-strength adhesive from his bag and- unfortunately for him -the last couple syringes of staunching gel he had. One by one he took them from her, first jamming syringe after syringe into his upper arm until they were all used up. Then he held still, motioning for her to bandage the stump for him. A2 carefully wrapped several loops around his elbow, brushing his tattered sleeve out of the way. Gnarled bits of metal and porcelain skin yanked and caught the bandages- obviously she was not an experienced field technician. But it did the job for the moment, stopping up the bleeding for the most part. It'd have to do for now.

"Thanks," 9S said again, misery lining his features as his posture sagged. He felt lopsided, imbalanced. Now mostly trusting of A2, he brushed past her to go pick up 2B's sword. It felt good to sling it across his back, but holding it in his left hand first made him feel awkward and heavy. He didn't like it one bit.

A2 followed him. "Now," she said, stepping back to fold her arms across her chest, "what the hell is going on here?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter provides a nice change of pace for those of you who were getting weary of 9S wandering around by himself. I hope the conversation provides some levity to the gruesome nature of the story for you- though I can't promise anything. As usual, thank you for reading and leave a review if you enjoyed.

A2 was still eyeing the soldier's exposed spinal column as 9S recounted his long, long tale. Though it was merely a few days ago that he began his journey, it had so many stumbles along the way that it amazed her he was even still alive. Amazed in the negative way, of course- the poor bastard should've been dead twenty times over. But still, she admired his perseverance.

His shaking had stopped, giving way to a numb rigid stance. The two of them sat at the edge of the battlefield, perched on the front stoop of a tall ruined apartment building. 9S was staring at his hand- the one still attached to his body. He'd lost limbs in combat before, more times than he felt like admitting, but they always were reattached shortly after the fighting ended. This time, it was forever, and he was terrified.

"What am I gonna do..?" He whispered, mostly to himself. He'd gained the use of 2B's sword but lost a whole arm in exchange. It hardly felt fair- her angry spirit hovering over him like a rain cloud, it seemed.

She responded anyway. "Is it just screwed?" A2 was now watching the exposed muscle of his upper arm twitch in response his brain wanting to move a hand that wasn't there.

"Yes." He said, hanging his head. "Even if I did find another arm, it wasn't severed clean so I'd have to cut off the shoulder in order for it to fit."

It felt strangely good to have someone to talk to. He missed the act of conversation, though the subject matter was more than a little undesirable. A2 hardly instilled a sense of camaraderie, but she was the first living being he'd seen that hadn't tried to kill him since he left 2B's side. For that he was thankful, at least.

"Sucks," she said with a shrug.

"Yeah, no kidding." Were he in better spirits, he would've smirked. Instead his frown just grew further etched into his features.

"And not even the resistance will help you, huh?" A2 said, leaning back to stare up at the sky.

"I doubt it. They all know my face, and if YoRHa is against me I'm sure they are too."

"Hmm."

9S was still examining his hand. His clothes were still damp, rendered even darker and heavy with blood, the leather of his gloves frayed and stretched. As it dried and crusted over along the fabric it took on an ugly shade of dark brown, clinging to him like a parasitic filth.

"Any other deserters?" A2 asked, turning her head back toward him.

"There wouldn't be any point in joining up. They'd just die like the rest of them." 9S closed his eyes and sighed. "Like I almost just did."

He noticed that she was quite obviously avoiding mentioning herself. The times they'd encountered one another in the past had always been two-on-one battles. She likely fancied herself some kind of lone wolf type. While he wouldn't mind being her traveling companion, he respected her decision to not ask for his accompaniment.

Which is why it surprised him when she grumbled, "Guess I'm stuck with you then."

Instantly the fog clouding him receded slightly, sent scrambling back to the dark from which it came. "What, really?" He asked, trying not to sound too pathetic.

"Any enemy of YoRHa's is a friend of mine." A2 said, her tone dripping with venom. Her words were surely less out of a desire for companionship and more one of a shared interest in murdering androids, so he decided not to let it slip that he didn't much enjoy doing so.

"Yeah..." He rested his arm on his knee, hunching over. "Sorry, I just didn't know what to expect. I know we're not exactly on friendly terms, and..." He trailed off, unsure of how to phrase an apology for fighting one another to the death on several occasions.

A2 shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Orders are orders."

What an ironic phrase. Orders are orders, but as 9S now knew, they were also meaningless. Cast down from people who didn't exist to androids with no purpose. He wondered if A2 knew about the pointless struggle YoRHa was trapped in, the endless machine war and the cycle of life and death. The words twitched on the tip of his tongue but he hesitated to say them, afraid that if she were unaware, she'd react... less than pleasantly to the news. As he'd learned thus far, it was the kind of thing worth keeping to one's self.

"We should get moving." She said, gesturing to the dead androids. "That weedy bastard is sure to tell all his friends about what he saw."

9S stood with her, following her as she left the stoop and returned to the sidewalk. "Right. Where are we going, though?"

"Anywhere that's not here." She mumbled absent-mindedly. "Can you run?"

He swallowed, afraid to disappoint her. "Uh... Maybe."

With a sigh, she heaved her shoulders. "Then we'll walk. But keep up, I'm not slowing down for you, y' hear?"

He was rubbing his bandaged stump idly and awkwardly as he nodded. "Understood."

Understood. How he never thought he'd be saying that word again.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
A2 walked tall. Surely drinking in the pride that came with feeling like a hero, 9S assumed. He knew the feeling well, but now he also knew that he probably should have been feeling like a rube instead. Again he wondered just how much A2 knew about YoRHa- considering how little he knew about her, the feeling was probably mutual.

She was a bit thinner than he'd noticed on their first encounter what felt like so long ago now. Perhaps the wear had eroded her insides some, or maybe being an older model came with having fewer internal parts. Being lighter probably gave her an advantage in combat. He watched the exposed muscle on her back and shoulders ripple as she walked ahead of him. It clung to her body like a latex suit or a rubber glove beneath her skin. He'd hardly ever seen an android in such a state of disrepair, but at least she still had all her limbs. She was strong, despite looking like she was about to fall apart at any minute.

But then he felt a bit of shame for admiring her like a creature instead of a person. As much as he hated to admit it, machines and androids were very similar in a lot of ways. The former's lack of personality defined the difference, and his clinical assessment of her features didn't give that aspect much consideration. Then again, it was hard to consider an enemy's thoughts and feelings. Until approximately ten minutes ago, she'd been a target. A foe to be destroyed without a moment of hesitation.

"Quit staring."

He was brought back to reality in an instant as he realized she'd turned her head and was peering at him over her shoulder, out of the corner of her eye.

9S swallowed. "Uh..." He aimlessly looked around them- nothing of importance. "What am I supposed to be looking at..?"

She shook her head with a sneer. "Gosh, I dunno, maybe keep an eye out for a bunch of assassins sneaking up on us?"

"Okay! Okay, sorry." He hunched his shoulders some as she turned back without another word, not breaking her pace even for a moment.

The silence returned as quickly as it'd vanished, with the two of them walking in sync and in quiet. They strode across a clearing between buildings, a small square that was probably once a park or a field. Machines had begun to dot the landscape now, simple stubby creatures here and there in groups of two or three. They paid the two no mind, keeping to their aimless business staring at the sky or the surroundings.

9S noted with a tinge of fear that they were wandering quite close to the resistance's main hub. If they saw him, would they react with anger? With fear? Would they accost him and ask him to explain himself, or gawk at his missing arm? Maybe they'd just shoot him dead on sight. Right now, part of him wouldn't mind that.

He cleared his throat. "So, uh... Where are we going?"

A2 shrugged, not looking back. "Wherever."

"Well, I..." He glanced at his arm. "I was thinking we could find some, y'know, medical supplies and stuff. I've got a lot of parts in need of repair."

"That's what we're looking for." She said simply.

Now he was confused. "I didn't know you had a plan."

"I don't. Wherever we end up, there'll be medical supplies." She nodded, and he couldn't help but wonder if it was to affirm it to him or to herself.

"No offense," he mumbled, afraid to upset her, "but I'd kinda prefer something more concrete than that."

A2 stopped and turned, folding her arms under her chest. She gave him a frustrated look. "Unless you've got something in mind, because I don't, then tough shit. We're stuck."

9S shook his head. "I've got nothing."

"Okay, then. This is what I do, and if you don't like it then you don't have to follow me." She said with the same sneer as before. It didn't seem genuine to 9S, seeing it from the front this time. Like she was putting it on to annoy him, to drive him away. She'd saved him, and was moderately friendly before, but maybe she wanted to put on an air of distance to keep him from being friendly back. He wondered why she'd do such a thing.

But she posed an interesting question. Why WAS he following her, anyway? It'd take some doing, but he surely could find medical supplies somewhere, somehow. His arm was a lost cause, but he didn't necessarily need it- androids were naturally ambidextrous, though using a sword in his left hand would be pretty awkward. He'd almost lost the fight against the YoRHa soldiers, but that was because of a dumb mistake on his own part.

Or at least, that was how his brain justified it to himself. In reality, he knew very well he couldn't survive on his own. Without her, he wouldn't have.

They were walking again.

9S turned his thoughts back to medical supplies.

He needed them, desperately. He could survive without an arm but not if the stump never stopped leaking coolant. His body would overheat eventually and he'd just drop dead, if the blood loss didn't get him first. And the shredded metal that had become his guts thanks to 2B wasn't feeling any better with all the pain striking him elsewhere. For the moment it was ignorable, but he knew very well that by the end of the day it no longer would be.

And as much as he hated to admit it, A2 was right. They had no plan to speak of. As depressed as it made him feel, they were currently wandering around as aimlessly as the stubby machines minding their business. Yet another way they were similar that made him cringe inside.

He wondered if he could simply run into the resistance camp, sword drawn, and demand his satchel filled with everything he needed. 9S didn't like the idea of killing any more androids, not after the brutal deaths he'd just accidentally caused, but if he were angry and persuasive enough maybe he could escape without harming anyone. He considered hacking a fellow android and subjugating them- then he could just waltz right in and take everything he needed using their body. But then again, he didn't have a way to release them from his control without a violent explosion or two, so that plan went out the window immediately.

They were sure to have what he needed, though. Field medicine was top priority for standard androids, not like they could just step into a magic vending machine and come out twenty miles away and good as new. Now he knew how they felt. There had to be some way to get in there without attracting attention and getting himself killed. Androids needed rest, but they'd have to have someone awake at all times. Even so, some hole in their security had to exist. Something he'd seen during his stay there with 2B but just couldn't recall. Locked away in his mind sat the answer, he just had to reach in and pull it out.

If there was any way for him to sneak in undetected, he couldn't fathom it.

...any way for HIM to sneak in undetected...

"I'm sorry," 9S murmured, hoping to appease her with humility, "I don't mean to be a burden or anything like that."

A2 sighed, slowing her brisk pace just a bit. "Yeah, well... Don't worry about it. I don't care if you stick around as long as you don't drag me down, so..."

Perhaps it was her form of apology. Extending an olive branch for her earlier snappy attitude. He decided to take the opportunity and appeal to pathos- 9S always fancied himself an emotional person, though a more philosophical creature would likely refer to him as 'pathetic'.

"Like it or not, I'm gonna die without your help." He lifted what remained of his elbow toward her. "This is all I've got left, and we have to do something about it."

She stared at his poorly-bandaged stump. "I know."

"I can't do this alone."

"Agreed." She was eyeing him pensively now. Obviously she was not dumb- clearly she knew he was about to ask for something unreasonable.

He took in a deep breath before continuing. "I have an idea, but... you're not going to like it."

"Great."

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
11G's combat armor was disgusting. Caked in blood and filth from her neck wound, the leather stuck to her flesh as A2 peeled it off piece by piece. 9S sat against a nearby lamp post, watching her strip the poor girl's corpse. As she yanked the helmet and mask off, 9S tried hard not to stare at her agape mouth, eyes wide in a frightened anguished cry. Dark red stains ran in rivers down her lips and chin. She had a beauty mark under her right eye. They were a deep green. Her hair was short and a sandy blonde. She was so pretty.

He wrenched his gaze away with a shudder.

"The shoulder pads go on last," he mumbled to A2 in a haze, trying to distract himself as she suited up.

"Screw you," she said with a frustrated snarl.

He sighed. "Thank you for doing this. I promise I won't forget it."

A2 was shrugging the black leotard up her body, seemingly trying to get used to the prospect of wearing clothes again. 9S was glad it appeared to fit her thinner form- maybe being so skin tight on YoRHa units wasn't as bad a design choice for them as he'd assumed. Not that he was complaining.

"I'm only doing this because you won't stop bitching about it if I don't." She grunted, heaving one of the metal knee joints over her leg so she could snap it into place.

They both knew it was a lie.

"On the bright side, you can keep the armor after this is over, right?" He said. While he knew trying to smooth over her anger was probably impossible it was worth a try.

She stopped to look at him, holding the chest plate in both gloved hands. "Don't want it. It'd just slow me down. I'm glad I was around before this crap was."

Watching her slip it over her shoulders, linking all the parts together with a satisfying click, he rubbed his stump anxiously. "So... When were you, uh, around?"

"You don't want to know." She said in a surprisingly heavy tone of voice, before stooping to pick up the mask and slide it on. Her flowing white hair stuck out of the back of the helmet, but 9S was hoping the resistance had never actually seen 11G before and didn't know what she looked like. Then again, there was no reason for A2 to actually pretend to be her- just wear her clothes long enough to pretend as if she needed supplies for her group.

For the first time in quite some time, 9S chuckled. Dryly, but still a chuckle nonetheless. "I'm a scanner," he said, "I wanna know everything."

"Well, too bad." She said, her voice a bit muffled by the mask. "I'm not gonna share my life story with you."

Her dressup finished, they both looked her over at the same time. A2 wobbled just slightly in the heels, having difficulty balancing her own permanently-attached ones standing on top of the ones that were a part of the shoes. The plates on the arms and legs were visibly dragging her down, heavy and cumbersome. It was obviously the first piece of clothing she'd worn in a long time and to her it must have felt like treading through water.

She resembled a model figurine of a combat android that was almost put together perfectly, but not quite. With scrutiny from real YoRHa soldiers, she'd fail immediately. Normal androids who didn't see them every day, however, would be none the wiser.

It'd work. He knew it would.

A2 let her arms drop to her sides, staring at 31E's still fresh corpse. "Well," she said with another sigh, "no time like the present."

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
9S sat crouched on the edge of a high building, watching A2 from his perch. He'd instructed her to act like she was a YoRHa unit- not much of a challenge considering she used to be one, he hoped -and pretend to be moderately injured. She'd been given a small shopping list of supplies he needed to restore himself back to his standard operating faculties, or close enough given the circumstances. Anything that wasn't handed over would have to be directly asked for, so he hoped her sob story would inspire generosity.

She stood around a corner, hidden from sight, shoulders shrugging as she rolled them. Her complaints had slowly died off as they made their way to the resistance camp, replaced by silent resignation. He really was endlessly thankful for her help, but he still felt she considered it some kind of moral duty and not actually giving assistance to someone she cared a single mote about.

Considering their swords had been clashing last time they met, he didn't really blame her.

He observed as she took on a slightly staggered pose. Hopefully she was as good at acting injured as she was at acting distant. She came into view of the camp then, limping just a little and clutching one shoulder with her opposite arm. Her hair flowed behind her in tendrils, and perhaps it'd be more convincing that way- dislodged from the battle she'd pretended to've had. Not many standard androids had white hair.

She became a black and white stick figure, just a dot far below, as she stumbled through the gates and into the camp. He'd told her not to let them check her vitals, or to sit her down and examine her, or anything like that. She was instructed to tell them her group was injured and that she could get there on her own much faster than if they came with her. A flawless escape with no loose ends.

He felt a little bad for stealing supplies from the resistance- he knew very well they didn't hold quite the infinite supply YoRHa did. An android far less resilient to battle damage as himself could need that medicine much more, and for all he knew, they could die without it. How he wished he could tell them the truth. How he wished they would listen even if he could.

A2 disappeared around a corner then after coming into view of a couple miscellaneous androids, who stopped what they were doing to stare. 9S settled in- hopefully she wouldn't be long, but he wasn't about to get comfortable just yet. Every second that passed meant more danger for the both of them... and it made him nervous.

While she was doing her thing, he considered his next move. The untimely demise of the combat units meant he couldn't retrieve the data he desired, and he was now very unwilling to try that same move again. Blocking his signal was still top priority, but now he was down one arm for the trouble of trying to resolve that little issue. Not only that, YoRHa surely knew he was still alive and the scanner had escaped, probably spilling everything he knew to them. If they were made aware he was so severely damaged, they'd certainly come after him in droves. Finish him off.

He hoped the resistance would hook A2 up with ample pain relief supplies. When she returned, he'd have a lot of work to do on himself. First would be severing the arm at the elbow, above the gnarled and twisted remnants of his forearm. A clean break to make sealing the wound shut an easier prospect. He could use one of their swords for that, but he'd probably have to take off his remaining glove and bite down on it or something. It certainly would not be a fun experience.

Opening himself up to repair the internal injuries was outright impossible. Or rather, fixing them was possible, but putting himself back together afterward was not. There was a reason YoRHa units were put together via assembly line. As much as it bothered him, they'd have to stay. Now that he had his hacking back he could just shut off the pain receptors in that part of his body, but how would he know if anything broke further? The idea of something going critically awry inside him while he was unaware was frightening.

It was only a handful of minutes before A2 returned. To 9S it felt like hours.

As the helmet came off with a depressurizing hiss, she wore a deep frown. She'd just plopped down a hefty bag full of supplies in front of 9S. Everything he needed was included and he poked through the satchel as she took off the armor. They sat atop a hill in the grass, disguised by the shade of one of the massive towering trees dotting the landscape. A2 threw the heavy chestpiece aside with a grunt and began stripping out of the leotard.

Then she stopped and looked down for a moment, her frown rising into a humorless chuckle. "Stupid," she murmured.

9S looked up from the bag. "What is?"

"Your dumb plan didn't work."

His face turned white and his mouth suddenly hung slack. "What?! What happened? You didn't kill anybody, did you?"

She'd returned to taking the armor off. "No. Someone recognized my voice. A ghost from the past showed up, and as it turns out, she's pretty damn alive for a ghost."

9S squinted at her. "What's that supposed to mean? Who did you talk to?"

She didn't respond, busy tugging on one kneepad to get it to dislodge from her broken dermal plates.

Then 9S' breath hitched as a realization washed over him. "It was Anemone, wasn't it?" He pointed a finger at her. "You're a first-generation YoRHa android."

"Don't rub it in," she mumbled, grunting hard as she yanked the kneepad from her leg. It came free and she threw it aside with the rest, giving him a disgruntled leer. Her eyes, a piercing gray and blue, told him he probably shouldn't ask further questions.

But when was he ever one to pay attention to probability?

"I didn't think you were that old," he said, picking up a syringe of staunching gel and turning it over idly in his fingers. "You must have been part of the first squad to come to Earth way back when."

"Yeah."

"The way you spoke... Did she not know you were alive? How did she react?"

A2 was staring at 9S' hand rummaging through the satchel. "Wouldn't know. As soon as she gave me what I came for I got out of there."

"I've read about that final operation the first YoRHa squad went on," he said. "The data log said there were only two survivors... but it was so corrupted that it didn't specify who."

Instantly A2's features grew darker, seemingly shadowed even further than the shade they sat in provided. She was silent now.

9S' voice was quiet. "It was you and Anemone, wasn't it?"

"You shut the hell up!" She snapped, once again giving him her piercing glare.

Something 9S learned about himself very early on was that his personality type had a habit of blabbering on. A certain naivete or perhaps a lack of self awareness during a distracted train of thought that led to becoming an annoyance. The kind of person constantly gripped by an eternal case of open-mouth-insert-foot, a case of saying too much and pissing off everybody when it was intended to be just simple conversation.

Well, his boot certainly didn't taste very good, that much he knew.

"How did she react?" He asked. "When she saw you, I mean?"

A2 was idly twirling a strand of hair around one finger. She was sat down across from him now, the sack of supplies between them, her legs drawn to her chest. "She was... Surprised, I guess."

"You guess?"

"She thinks the supplies are for me." She said, barely hidden anger teeming under the surface of her words. "That's why there's so much."

9S suddenly felt even more guilty. "Oh... I-I'm sorry. You can keep whatever I don't need, it's no big deal-"

"It's not about that!" A2 huffed. "She took pity on me because I'm a fugitive from YoRHa. She thinks I need help, that I'm so desperate I need to come crawling to the resistance to get supplies."

"Oh." 9S said again.

"I can't stand being pitied." She grunted.

"I can tell."

A2 rolled her eyes with a scoff.

A moment of silence fell between them again, but 9S was not willing to let the subject lie. He was obviously burdening her, and though he could just leave now that he had the supplies he desired, he felt awful for taking her on such a trip down memory lane. He had to make it right, or at least try. He owed as much to her.

9S chose his words carefully. "You should... go talk with her. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I mean."

"Like hell." She said.

"Well, what's the alternative? Leave her wondering how you survived all this time?"

"Yup."

"I don't think that's exactly fair to her, do you? You're hunted by YoRHa just like me, but if she still cares about you this much," he gestured to the bag, "you ought to at least see how she's doing."

A2 was incredulous, but her shoulders sagged in what he assumed was agreement. "You're a real bastard." She grumbled.

"I've been thinking that more and more often myself, these days."

The silence returned, a much more comfortable one this time. At least he always had self-deprecation as a reliable standby. There was a whole lot to self-deprecate about and the list was growing. He rummaged through the last of the supplies and laid them out in a small semicircle around himself. Everything he needed was present, most of the excess small enough to fit in his satchel.

Sealing up the wound would be easy, he could do that with one hand... but before that he'd need to make the clean break he was considering earlier. And that would be a challenge. He was unsure if he had the dexterity for it, and even then, the willpower. It would hurt like absolute hell no matter how much he hacked himself to shut it out at the root. Only a few inches of arm needed to go, but it was more than enough to make him squirm at the thought.

He took in a deep breath, then looked up at A2 without raising his head.

"I... uh... I need your help with this."

A2 nodded, eyes on his stump, already knowing what he spoke of.

"Okay."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy with how this chapter turned out. It was a bit of a struggle to write as I didn't want the pace to change TOO much from that of the story so far, and I hope I did a good job keeping it consistent. As always, leave a review if you enjoyed, I hope there are some pleasant surprises in store for you in this chapter.

9S wondered if his arm was going to keep getting shorter and shorter until there was nothing left on that side of his torso. Feeling like hell, he lay on his back on the dirt beside A2. She was sat against a tree, elbows resting on her knees and chin in her hands. Both of them were mentally exhausted from their recent effort.

Now severed at the elbow joint- a clean, even circle with no jagged ridges, as if his arm was a jar and the lid had been removed -he had no forearm remaining. He still would not be able to attach another android's arm in its place, but at least now it wasn't a gnarled hunk of metal.

He could still feel his hand there, though it was long gone. It was a strange sensation, for his brain to be unable to adapt to the lack of muscles to flex. He kept expecting to look down and see it in its rightful place, and more than once he'd tried to grab some of his medicinal supplies with it. He wondered then if he'd ever stop making that mistake.

A2 was watching as he rolled his shoulder, finally willing to try sitting up. He pushed off of the ground with his remaining elbow and rose to a seated position with only a little difficulty.

"Finally feeling better?" She asked, not removing her jaw from its place in her hands. She scratched her cheek idly with one fingernail, suppressing a yawn. They both needed rest, but not here. Though they likely would not be spotted by androids, and the machines were still minding their own business, they could both be sure it wouldn't be long before YoRHa came after him anew.

He groaned as his wobbly vision calibrated itself. "Sort of." He reached across his body to the pile of scrap parts and picked up the round elbow joint between his fingertips, rolling it in his hand idly as he wore an expression of dismay. "What now?"

"I was about to ask you that." She said, gaze flickering between his face and his hand.

He stopped. "You're leaving that up to me? I'm surprised."

"I'm out of ideas." A2 replied with a shrug.

9S thought hard. Clutching the ball joint in his fist, he brought it to his chin and rubbed it gently with his thumb. "Do you have anywhere we can go that's guaranteed to be safe?"

She rolled her eyes. "From machines, yeah. From androids using magic tracking signals, no."

"Okay... Well, we've got all the supplies we need, so... if you want to get back to just roaming around, I guess we can."

She gave him a look that said 'good idea, genius' and pushed off of her knees to get to her feet. When he took a moment to stand himself, she offered him her hand- the correct one this time -and gave him a pull. When he was up, however, she didn't let go.

Her voice was a quiet, but serious murmur. "Don't you ever forgive them for doing this to you."

9S chuckled nervously. "Believe me, I didn't plan on it."

She 'tsk'ed at him. "Yeah. Whatever you say," she grumbled, and let his hand drop.

He tracked her with his head as she turned and began walking in a random direction. "Hey... you don't think I'm being serious?" She didn't respond right away, so he hoisted his satchel over his shoulder and power-walked to catch up with her.

"It takes a lot of guts," she said after a moment, "to hate someone."

9S blinked at the back of her head. "What do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. And you don't have it in you." She responded, her tone of voice implying her mind was now somewhere far away.

Now he was a little offended. "Well, so what if I don't? Is that really that bad?" He was trying to catch up and walk beside her, see her face, read her expression. She was walking too fast for him to fully catch up in his weakened state, probably intentionally.

"Yes. Some people deserve to be hated. Sometimes a hell of a lot of people." She lowered her head some. They both knew she was speaking of YoRHa. But 9S couldn't bear to hate them just because of their association. Orders were orders. They had to be.

He chose his response carefully. "I know that."

She didn't wait even a beat before continuing. "Then you should know when it's right to feel that way. I bet it'd be easier for you if you knew what it was like to be hated."

He scoffed. "Well, I assume YoRHa's not really a fan of me anymore."

A2 stopped walking so fast 9S almost bumped right into her. She spun, and her icy eyes caught his before he could look away in embarrassment. "That's not what I mean, damn it." She said.

He swallowed, unable to look away. "O-Okay."

"You're so curious about who I am, then fine, I'll tell you to prove my point." She pointed an accusing finger at him. "You and I are the same. We were both screwed over by YoRHa for not rolling over like dogs when they asked us to. But your problem is you're not pissed off about it, and you should be. You have more than enough reason to get angry but you're holding onto some stupid hope that you've still got friends out there."

9S was unable to respond.

"Do you have someone who hates you?" She asked. It was a rhetorical question, but it still hit him hard. Her words were a sharp dagger, coated in poison, and 9S felt it pierce his skin right through his gut in a very familiar spot. His hand instinctively went gently to his side.

He wondered if she hated him. For making her life so miserable, time after time. Every moment heavy and anxious, wondering when he might learn too much and have to be killed. Constantly afraid of getting too close to him for fear of becoming too attached and losing the ability to maintain a straight face when her sword went through his back. Unable to leave his side, but also unable to properly join it. Stuck together and torn apart, again and again, forever.

2B had to hate him. It was the only thing that made sense.

A2 looked down at his hand, then back up. "You're going to die unless you start fighting back."

"Is that what this is about?" 9S cocked his head at her. "You're upset because you saved me? After what you just did? I don't understand."

She set her jaw, breathing a heavy exhale. It seemed she wasn't actually mad at him, just frustrated- visibly trying not to go from shaky to true anger. "You remind me of someone I knew once. She died because she was like you." She said, closing her eyes softly.

"Oh."

"If you don't give people what they deserve when you have the chance, you're gonna end up just like her."

With that, she spun around on her heel and kept walking. 9S hesitated to follow, but did so anyway, unwilling to leave her side. It seemed this little trip down memory lane he'd accidentally sent her on had left an impression on her- probably a bad one, but maybe it was merely the memories themselves that were bad. Guilt ran through him like a stake then, as her suffering was mostly his fault. It was undeniable. Or at least, it felt that way to him.

But she had a point. He was too busy being frightened of YoRHa to be mad at them, but that was mostly because there was no way he could survive a direct encounter with them. He had ample reason to dislike them, sure, but YoRHa was all he knew. A2 had been wandering around on her own for years- she'd had loads of time to stew in her feelings. That was where the difference between them lay, he thought. He was still fresh out of the gates, and she stood knee deep in the killing fields.

And what if that was the only way to survive? YoRHa had infinite resources. Infinite combat units. Infinite time to spend hunting him down. He needed to either learn how to pretend to be dead, or learn how to fight them off forever. And pretending to be dead seemed like a pretty crappy way to live his life.

The other option seemed just as crappy, though. How A2 had survived this long without getting infected by a virus and going insane was beyond him. Maybe hatred really was the key, loathe as he was to admit it. The embers burning inside of her keeping the rest of her creaking old flame lit, and all that. He was desperate not to succumb to it, but he couldn't deny that it gave her strength he certainly didn't currently have.

And again, her point was somewhat valid. If 2B really did hate him after what he'd put upon her... it made little difference to 9S anymore. At the moment, he wasn't really a fan of her either.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
"Like this." A2 said, holding her sword outward. She stood to the side, staring down her arm at the point of the blade, one leg cocked. 9S stood opposite her, 2B's sword clenched gently in his hand. He watched her pose stiffen just a little as she held it for him to observe.

"Like... that." 9S repeated, trying his best to strike a mirrored version of the same pose. The sword was nowhere near the realm of straight, cocked at an odd angle that left him wide open for a counter-attack. He felt imbalanced, the lack of weight on his right side throwing off his ability to stand properly. He'd read once that a human's fingers and toes were somehow necessary for keeping proper balance. At the time it seemed like bunk, but now he understood that importance well.

A2 scoffed. "Not even close." She said. "Stand up straighter."

He corrected his posture as best he could, attempting his usual battle pose. He wobbled on his heels and the sword almost fell from his hand as he stuck out an arm that didn't exist for support. The fact that scanner units weren't supposed to wield swords was not helping any. It felt like his brain was fighting him every step of the way.

9S dropped his arm with a shake of his head. "It's not working. My balance sensors aren't calibrated right anymore."

A2 shrugged. "Well, the alternative is not being able to fight anything ever again, so you'd better adjust."

"I guess so." He said, defeat already starting to seep into his voice.

"Try it again." A2 struck the same pose, staring at the point of her sword like it was about to come alive and attack her. 9S once more attempted to mimic her, this time having a little better luck staying on his own two feet. He'd never had to practice anything in his life- any information or skill an android needed to know could be downloaded into their brain in minutes. It was a pretty new concept to him.

As A2 helped him stumble his way through adapting his combat stances to the opposite side of his body, he thought of just how... privileged YoRHa soldiers were, for lack of a better word. Under YoRHa, he never had to scrounge in the dirt for supplies, he was never wanting for medical aid, and he had all the backup he could ever need at the push of a button. For the longest time he thought of his own people as shining, valiant knights with glistening metal armor and immeasurable numbers- which he supposed made standard androids the peasants, desperate for their help in the never ending war against tyranny.

What a load of crap.

After some time learning to stand up properly and keep his balance, A2 walked him through utilizing his ability to swing with more heft than he could when he had even weight on both sides; the sword now served as a sort of counterweight, carrying him through the swing in a wide and dangerous arc that was only the slightest bit uncontrollable. He followed her lead as she swung in a flurry, speeding up to her usual pace.

A2 was not a particularly good teacher- mostly 9S was just following what she was doing rather than her instructions -but her abrasiveness seemed to shed like a snake's skin when she became entranced in combat. She moved with a certain speed and gracefulness that he wouldn't have expected given her less than friendly mood. Said grace, he could never hope to properly mimic, but it was an interesting technique to take pointers from at least.

There was little rhythm to the learning process. A2 would do some generic swinging, 9S would practice along with her. She said almost nothing, but words weren't strictly necessary. One thing that hadn't changed with the loss of his arm was the instinctual nature of combat. He'd learned from watching 2B so very long ago now that using the same moves every time didn't work on machines for long. They learned, grew, and adapted. Improvisation was key, and it was that lack of order that drove his own battle technique as well. He supposed that now he'd just have to improvise harder.

Finishing a combo of attacks, he hurled 2B's sword with a grunt as he had done hundreds of times before in dozens of battles. It stuck in the dirt with a dull 'thunk'... and then simply stayed in place.

9S stared at it, expecting it to come back, but it didn't.

"Oh... Yeah." He looked at his arm stump. The part of the close combat chip used for recalling his weapon utilized right hand gestures. "Damn."

A2 stood beside him, staring at the sword as well. "Hmm. That IS a problem." She shot him a bored look. "Might I suggest keeping the sword in your hand?"

"Gee, thanks."

9S walked over and yanked it from the ground, making a mental note that his whole suite of fancy telekinetic moves was no longer an option. That severely limited his longer range combat ability, but he supposed if YoRHa came at him with guns again he could just use cover. Provided they didn't catch him out in the open, of course.

Eventually, he became proficient enough with his left hand that he might be able to defend himself. 9S doubted he'd realistically ever be skilled enough to fight more than one or maybe two opponents at once, but it was better than being completely defenseless. Anything was better than that.

He noted with some disdain that his new combat style resembled himself in general now. It was reckless, lumbering, and desperate. Every swing was a struggle for grip and balance, just like his own faculties. He should have found it funny, but he couldn't. Not anymore.

"Time to put your new skills to the test." A2 said, yanking him out of his thoughts. For a moment he was frightened she wanted to spar with him, but instead he followed her outstretched arm and pointed finger to a clearing inbetween the trees they took refuge under. A small group of machines stood there beside a pond, doing nothing in particular.

9S took a moment to respond. "I... don't think I'm ready for that."

"Jeez, you really are a wuss." A2 shook her head. "If you get in trouble I'll kill them for you, alright? Now go."

He looked back and forth between her and the machines. There were only a half-dozen of them- mostly useless rusty stubbies -but a couple of the bulkier standard units stood among them, arm cannons at the ready for anyone who may decide to try their luck. 9S noticed A2 wearing a strangely complicated expression when his eyes flicked toward her. It was almost one of pity. While he supposed he was fairly pitiable at the moment, there was something else underneath the surface there that he couldn't quite place. Surely she felt sorry for him, but aside from that he didn't know what to make of it.

She loosely followed as he stalked off toward them, trying to maintain the element of surprise. If it were up to him, he'd just hack the lot of them, but that would defeat the point of the exercise in this case. What worried him was the permanence of his actions, and more importantly, theirs. Every bit of wear he put on his body and every hit they managed to steal would damage him in ways that were no longer easy to fix. He noted with a bit of fear that A2 had taught him all the basics of attacking, and hardly any of dodging. Then again, he'd had a lot of luck with scooting backward on his rear end of late, so maybe he could crabwalk his way to safety if the need arose.

Holding 2B's sword aloft, he crouched in some bushes on the outskirts of the clearing. He could feel A2's judging eyes on him as he waited until they were all facing away. 9S was not in the business of backstabbing his enemies like a coward- he'd leave that to 2B -but they had numbers and he had one arm. Some subterfuge seemed only fair.

When he was in the clear, 9S leapt into action as best as he could manage. Emerging from the bushes, sword drawn across his body, he sprinted toward the nearest machine. The stumpy creature barely had time to turn around before he released his pent-up swing, slicing it in two right across the middle. The rest of them spun around, eyes lighting up as awareness shot through them like a wave. 9S realized then that he probably should've done his sneak attack on one of the big ones. Whoops.

They'd begun to surround him before the top half of the first one had even hit the ground. The taller machines struck their usual clockwork poses, hulking metal fists at the ready for pounding androids into the dirt. 9S watched as the stubby foes waddled toward him, their own spindly arms already winding up. At least they were still predictable.

He rolled to the side to avoid the firey swat of one of the taller machines- perhaps unnecessary, but it felt good. His shoulder hit the ground hard but the sword refused to leave his grip, and when he came back to his feet he returned with an upward slash that knocked it a few feet into the air. Of course, the sword was doing most of the work, but he still took some joy from watching it come crashing down into the others.

Immediately he followed up with a wide swing that cut apart a few more of the stubbies while they tumbled like rolling tin cans. However, his confidence had made him overzealous, it seemed. His heel spun with the weight of the sword, knocking him off kilter and into the path of one of the standard machines, which was charging up its arm cannon.

9S flailed for balance, but it was too late. The machine fired, a loud and explosive thunderclap that sent purple balls of crackling energy at him like a shotgun. He reacted as fast as he could, diving to the side and swinging upward once again. Just enough of the energy balls were dissipated by the sword to clear a path, and 9S thanked his lucky stars as he stuck out his arm to do a handspring back to his feet.

Only, he had already forgotten he didn't have a hand there to spring off of, so instead he landed on his side with a whooshing exhale and slid a few feet. He groaned, shaking the dust out of his eyes and feeling only slightly like an idiot. When he looked up, however, his eyes shot wide and panic struck him.

The tall machine lowered its raised boot in an attempt to curbstomp him, but he had already just barely managed to roll out of the way. The dull 'thud' of the machine's foot stomping the ground brought some awareness of the potential stakes to 9S' frenzied mind. One mistake and it was almost all over. It was way too close for comfort.

He rushed forward and tackled it with his shoulder, knocking it off balance just long enough for a counter attack. 9S spun in a circle, blade extended outward, letting the sword's momentum carry him a full 360 degrees. The machine's arm came off like a hot knife through butter, and with another spin its leg followed suit. To stop his whirling he stuck out his leg and gave it a kick that pushed it to the side, into the other machines. The metal sound reverberated up his body like a tuning fork, and he hissed as the impact hurt his heel. It did the job however, and he took his awkward combat stance as its body parted the others like a wave.

The stubbies advanced, the last of the remaining troops. 9S weaved between their flailing arms, delivering a precision stab that speared both of them at once. Instantly they fell limp, though not yet deceased, and 9S realized then that he didn't have the strength to yank the sword out of them both with one hand.

The machine closest to him whipped its arm around like a club, hitting him hard in the shoulder and knocking the hilt out of his hand. He grabbed for it again, ducking another wild swing, reversing his grip and pulling as hard as he could manage. With a bit of wiggling it finally came free, and the ensuing explosion knocked him forward onto his stomach. Shrapnel flew in all directions, the machine's claw hand bouncing off of his head with a metallic 'clunk'.

"Oww..." 9S muttered, rubbing his head as he sat up. "Dammit..."

A2 was already walking up to him when he raised his posture to look around for her. She wore a slightly judging, but mostly satisfied expression. Not quite a smile... but close enough for him.

"That was pretty embarrassing." She said, offering her hand. "It'll do though." He took it, as usual, then slung 2B's sword across his back where it belonged. At least that part of the chip wasn't useless.

A2 admired his handiwork. "It seems like you've got the hang of it." She looked at the two-limbed machine, its eyes now dim and lifeless. "Your cuts were pretty straight and fast."

"Didn't know I was signing up to be critiqued." He mumbled as she crouched to examine it further.

"Try not to spin around so much." She said, ignoring his comment. "If you fall over you're as good as dead."

How blunt of her to say. He wanted to interject, to note that he had gotten away from the tall machine's mighty boot pretty easily... but he knew it was pointless. She was right, he had to avoid getting knocked around or else. He'd gotten lucky. A machine with faster reaction time would've left a boot print on his skull.

"Other than that, though... not bad." A2 said, staring at the wreckage instead of him.

'Not bad'. Hell, 9S decided, he'd take it. To be paid a genuine compliment at a time like this, however minor, made him feel good inside. It was not often for him to be complimented for his work at all, really- he now knew that it was probably just another way for 2B to distance herself from him. How much neglect had he suffered for her benefit over the years, he wondered?

"Won't be long before you won't even need my help anymore." She said, her bangs clouding her face.

9S cocked his head. "Hey... Don't speak too soon." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and he gave her a small smile of reassurance, but she didn't return it. He hadn't expected her to, but regardless, now he was sure something was bothering her. Still no idea what, though.

A2 was still looking at the machine corpses. The gears in her head seemed to be turning for some reason, he had not a clue why. She knelt to pick up what appeared to be a random scrap part- the arm 9S had cut off of the tall machine. Wordlessly, she turned it over in her hands, running her thumb over the scratched metal and rusted joints.

She turned to 9S, staring at him- though not at his face -and when he followed her gaze he knew exactly what she was thinking.

Concern crossed his features. "What? Really?"

She looked down at the arm, then back at him. "Well... It's the right arm, and you cut it off at the elbow. Why not?"

Why not, indeed? 9S already had machine parts inside him from his earlier self-surgery- the scars of which surely were still the dark red they were the last time he saw them. Had it really only been three days since he'd been skewered by 2B? Three days since he'd almost bled out in the dirt like a stuck pig? It felt like it'd been months.

Without the sheared metal currently holding his insides together, he'd probably be dead. Granted, his patchwork dissection was far from professional and was part of the reason his side still ached when he did anything strenuous, but it was too late to do anything about that now. But even so, there was precedent for utilizing machine parts to fix his broken body.

This was a little different, though. While the other repairs had been done with what amounted to simple scrap metal, this was a real, functioning limb. It was stronger than him, heavier. It traded complexity for raw brute strength, and though there wasn't nearly as much actual circuitry involved, what was there frightened him a little. Spare scraps of metal couldn't be infected with viruses or otherwise incompatible technology. Actual body parts could be.

But then again, anything was possible regarding machine technology, and he certainly felt fine. His brain wasn't any more corrupted than it had been when he was recovering from 2B's failed assassination attempt. If anything had tried to infect him from his first round of self-repair, his body had successfully fended it off. He doubted a real virus would give up so easily if it did even exist, but he couldn't deny the chance was slim.

"Well?" A2 said, holding the arm aloft by the forearm like she was afraid it might come to life and strangle her. He realized then that he'd been thinking all of this out in real time, standing there awkwardly saying nothing for the past minute or so.

9S slowly nodded. "Okay... Sure. We'll try it." He looked down at the stump, slightly upset that he'd have to cut off even more of the remaining forearm in order to get at the wires and circuits and bones inside. By the time they'd be finished, however, it wouldn't really matter anymore.

They sat down across from each other in the clearing, and A2 tried to maintain a neutral expression as 9S ran her through the process.

"So, basically, I'm going to have to take off the whole outer layer up to the shoulder and leave only the bones and muscles and stuff left. The dermal plate's gotta go, the shell, everything. Then we can hopefully wire it up piece by piece until it's in place."

"Ugh." A2 did not bother hiding her disgust.

He sighed. "Well... After that we can put the shell back on if it'll fit and hopefully it won't look so..."

"Horrible?"

"Yeah." He drew 2B's sword and held his arm all the way out, reversing the blade to point toward himself. It was a bit awkward, but he managed to point the tip at his shoulder, where the collarbone met the forearm. It wobbled just slightly as he drew his wrist back as far as he could to get some leverage, ready to stick it between the dermal plates and pry them off. He held for just a second more, and then went for the plunge.

"Jesus, fuckin' give me that." A2 suddenly dropped the arm in the grass and grabbed for his wrist with one hand before he could stab himself, yanking the sword from his grasp with the other.

He felt her squeezing pressure on his wrist and looked from his empty hand to her angry expression. "Oh... You don't need to help me with this, I've got it handled." He said, not understanding why she suddenly looked so disgruntled.

She idly pointed 2B's sword at him with a frown. "You're gonna kill yourself. Let me do it."

The assertion in her voice didn't phase him. "No, really, it'd be better if I did it since I know where the gaps are and-"

"I'm not gonna let you die." A2 grunted at him.

This stunned him for a moment, but he bobbed his head almost absent-mindedly in response. "I... Uh... Okay."

She let his wrist go with surprising gentleness, then put her palm flat against the sword's hilt. Over the next few minutes he instructed her on the locations of all of the razor-thin grooves separating the pieces of his body's outer shell. Very carefully she wedged the sword into them and pried them apart, her hands trembling only slightly with what seemed to be nervousness. 9S had to admit that though he could have done it by himself, it was a far easier process with someone able to get at it from different angles doing it instead. His arm came apart in three pieces, leaving only the exposed black muscle and a bundle of circling, pulsing wires in its place.

He spotted A2 examining herself once or twice as they did their work, no doubt comparing her older make and model to his own. They were remarkably similar, the reasons for which were fairly obvious, but the subtle differences were still apparent. 9S' underlying muscles were made of a much tougher fiber- while hers resembled rubber or latex, his were much closer to a real muscle in appearance. They stretched and pulled properly as any animal's muscle would, though these of course did not move much as there was no lower arm connected to them. The tradeoff was readily visible, however; all of A2's underlying wires and circuitry were contained within the inner layer, whereas 9S had tubes sticking out everywhere. More recent YoRHa models were very clearly not meant to come apart and be tinkered with.

And, eventually, 9S was laid mostly bare. His arm, shoulder, and neck all the way up to the collar had their dermal plates totally stripped out. Over the next hour or so, A2 patiently held the machine arm in place against his shaking skeletal forearm as he tried not to electrocute himself. He yanked the cuff separating the machine arm's upper and lower halves off, fingers trembling as he connected its tiny frayed wires to his own. It hurt like hell, but thankfully the pain was numbed some by way of cranking down his pain receptors. As before, he couldn't turn them off because he needed to know when the machine arm was properly connected- a fact which irked him every time a red-hot electric jolt ran up his shoulder and into his upper chest.

After what seemed like ages, 9S sighed. "Okay..." He said, nodding at A2. "Push it in place."

He braced his shoulder as she rotated it a half-turn and shoved it into position. They both grunted as the two halves came together, jamming the live wires into the cuff and the cuff into his arm bone and the arm bone back into the muscles. He cried out as pain shot through his torso, sending a shudder rippling through him. There was a loud 'clack' as it all fell into place, and A2 jumped back as the arm suddenly came to life.

9S squeezed his eyes shut and grunted as an intense heat ran through his core, his brain readjusting itself to a ton of new information. When it subsided enough, he cracked one eyelid open and willed himself to look down. With a sharp intake of breath, he gently wiggled the machine arm's fingers.

He gently wiggled HIS fingers.

9S shared an awed look with A2, whose eyes were as wide as dinnerplates. Whether she was impressed with his technical skill or not, he couldn't tell, but she surely had to be with his tenacity by this point. If he needed to earn her respect, he'd damn well better have it now.

He curled the machine hand into a fist and then back. It was slow, and too big to hold his sword, but it'd work just fine. Now he could be more than just another android. Now he could be better than an android. And standing by A2's side, he could accomplish anything.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
A day or so later, A2 stood with her posture defensive and her eyes down at her feet.

"You can't do this." 9S pleaded.

"I can, and I'm going to." She said. "You and I weren't going to be partners."

"Why not?" He gestured to his new arm, still not used to the weight it added. "Look at this! I couldn't have done any of this without your help."

She was visibly trying to be distant, shoulders arched high. "You're right, but that doesn't change anything. You're a liability."

He was astounded. "A liab-- A-- Is that all I am to you? Why did you even help me then?"

She squeezed her eyes closed. "I don't mean it like that. YoRHa is going to keep coming after you until you're dead, and if we stick together, we're both going to die."

"What, as opposed to me dying by myself?" 9S was incredulous now, almost offended.

She clenched her hands into fists. "That's not what I meant either! You can fend for yourself and so can I, so if we stick together they're just going to send stronger and stronger soldiers after us."

Surprisingly eloquent for someone who spoke in short sentences, often with curse words. 9S had to concede as much; if they were spotted together by YoRHa, the assassination squads would grow larger in frequency and number to account for the second party. They'd be more intense, more angry, more desperate to slaughter them and go back to living in ignorance. Happy ignorance, maybe not, but to them A2 and 9S were traitors alike and deserved equal traitors' deaths.

But he refused to let that be a reason for her to go. "Why would you want to leave, then? I know we could take them. All of them."

"Because I've seen enough people die, damn it!" She yelled, stomping a heel to the ground.

9S was stunned.

"I can't watch you die too."

He took in a deep breath, letting the heat of the moment dissolve a bit before continuing. A heavy silence fell over them then. They stared at one another- 9S having the advantage thanks to the blindfold. He had a real crappy poker face and he knew it, but he also knew that all she could see was his trembling lower lip. "Please," he said softly.

A2 rolled her eyes, turning from him just long enough to gesture widely. "God, don't give me that shit. I'm not gonna pity you so don't even try."

She really was the master of the snap freeze- going from warm to cold in an instant. It was imposing, terrifying in a way. Every instinct 9S had was telling him to just give up before he upset her. She was the closest thing to an ally, or possibly a friend, that he had left in the world at the moment. Pissing her off meant he once again had nobody, and he was more than a little desperate not to go back to that.

"Well, what do you want me to say?" He asked, only partially rhetorically. "Did you really think I was going to just let you leave?"

She half-chuckled, half-scoffed. "No. No, I knew this was gonna suck." But then she sighed. "I'm sorry. I really am."

9S could tell. It was in every aspect of her- her posture, her facial expression, her tone of voice. He was well aware she didn't want to leave him like this and he was sure she was very conscious of her own feelings on the matter.

"Then don't do this." He said, hunching over just a bit in what may as well have been defeat. "Without you I'd have died back there."

"Yeah. You would have." She murmured.

9S felt hot tears welling up in his eyes as he cursed himself for getting so attached, for regaining some semblance of hope. What a fool he was for thinking there was still good out there for him to find. His heart ached. His cheeks were red hot. All of the loneliness he'd been pushing away for the past couple of days had come back to haunt him with a vengeance now. He was about to be alone again and it had already begun to hurt.

Without anything more to say on the matter, A2 turned to start leaving and he didn't bother trying to follow her. "If YoRHa ever gives up looking for you, come find me." She said, her voice practically a harsh whisper on the wind. "I'll tell you all about who I used to be then."

And just like that, she was gone. 9S could do nothing but watch her leave, until she disappeared into the trees and shadow like a ghost.

Rust flaked off of the machine arm as 9S clenched it into a tight, shaking fist. He stared at it as he blinked a clear mist from his eyes, his breathing becoming labored. Now he understood what A2 had meant during their heart to heart earlier. Hate was important. It kept her going even though she was so alone out there. She had nobody to rely on, and when she finally found someone who was willing to stand by her side, she chose solitude. She was so much stronger than he felt he could ever be, but now... Now, they had at least one thing in common.

Right now, he hated the whole damn world.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems that Nier fanfic has died a bit, which is kind of a shame, but the torch must be carried on regardless. As usual, please leave a review and let me know what you think, and I'm glad you're still here to enjoy the continued suffering of unit 9S with me.

The arm felt like it weighed a ton as 9S stalked through winding city streets, alone once again. Coincidentally, so did his heart. How stupid he'd been to trust someone again. Not just with his faith, but his life, too. It was a mistake, one he decided he wouldn't be making again. No more companions, no more friendship, no more trust. Just him versus the entire world. He kicked a stone from the sidewalk as he passed.

Only, it was a lie, wasn't it? He knew inside that the only reason he was pouting like this was because he desired the companionship A2 provided. It wasn't just a part of his programming, it was simple personal preference. Anything felt better to him than being alone. Back when he was running around with 2B he quickly learned he'd rather choose death over solitude... and yet, here he was, still fighting.

The self-assessment wasn't helping his mood any. A2 wandered around looking for someone who was strong enough to finally kill her, and the thought of ending up the same way frightened him. Being completely purposeless- besides, of course, 'kill all machines' -was a scary thought on a purely existential level. Why even live if there's nothing to look forward to, nothing to do, nothing to accomplish? Nobody to acknowledge you and your importance?

9S shook the thoughts from his mind. That was a dangerous road to start going down. He had to stay focused on his current objective, which of course remained 'survive' as usual. At the moment he was basically completely lost for ideas but there had to be something out there waiting in the dark for him to grab at. Something locked away in his mind that he never thought would be relevant, some information stored in a zipped up data file in a remote quarter of his unconscious mind.

Which did him no good, because how was he going to remember something if he had no inclination as to what he was supposed to be remembering?

He rubbed the back of his neck as he walked. Damn, was he tired. Sure, androids didn't need sleep, but that didn't stop him from wanting it. Sleep was nice if only because it broke up periods of being conscious, aware and thinking. It was a different kind of fatigue than just being physically exhausted. Not having anything to break up the constant flow of thoughts and information and processing was starting to wear on his sanity a bit.

But he couldn't rest until he found a safe place where YoRHa couldn't track him. It was just too dangerous to try and get some shuteye with the threat of death looming over him like this. He promised himself that as soon as he found refuge he'd sleep for a week. Or at least, an afternoon.

For now he was wandering aimlessly around the city, fresh out of leads. It'd been a suspiciously long time since he'd seen his YoRHa pursuers, and he hoped that was a sign they weren't coming back for a while. Then again, hoping had gotten him exactly nowhere so far in his little adventure so he didn't much feel like starting now. His shoulder was a bit sore from the weight of his new arm, still tingling uncomfortably at the connecting point between sleek silver metal and... well, brown tinted metal.

He stared up at the sky as he walked. Somewhere up there, eyes were peering down. Far, far out in the reaches of space, past the dull desaturated yellow of the sky, YoRHa was watching him. Back when he was on their side, it'd never bothered him to know they were observing whenever he accomplished an objective, talked about the old world, recorded a memory log of 2B doing something cool. Now he couldn't shake the discomfort. Of course, they couldn't do much from that many thousands of miles away, but it still bothered him regardless.

He half-shrugged his shoulders, gesturing at nothing. As if to say, "fine, then, come get me". They were cowards, just like 2B, leaving him waiting in anxious agony like this. He wondered if it was on purpose- if they knew the silence would be driving him crazy. Psychological tactics in addition to sending muscle to beat him to death. In his opinion it was a bit unnecessary, but he doubted they much cared what he thought anymore.

Cowards. 'Everyone on this damn planet is a coward,' he thought. Even himself.

To distract his tired mind from going down a path of self destruction, he steered his thoughts back toward blocking his tracking signal. If closing the data ports was unrealistic, and shutting the signal off was impossible... that left physically blocking it somehow. Granted, he hadn't actually tried to close the data ports but he wasn't about to risk losing another limb or three.

There was a hell of a lot of distance between Earth and the Bunker. If he got far enough away it might lose its connection, but then they could just bounce it off of one of the other space stations floating up there. Said distance made the signal pretty fragile, and going underground severed communications relatively easily. The problem there would be dealing with the machines that also took refuge in the vein-like tunnels running under the operations area... and any YoRHa troops running around down there. Definitely too dangerous.

He rubbed his chin with his normal hand while he walked, flexing the bulky fingers on the other- still getting used to the weight of the thing. The gears in his head turned and turned. A deep enough thicket of trees would do it too, but that left immeasurable opportunities for sneak attacks and he'd had enough of those for one lifetime by this point. He could find shelter in a cave underwater... but then he'd have to actually go through said water to get out whenever he wanted to find some supplies, and that would lead to some real internal problems. Perhaps a secluded location in the machine factory; the place was huge and ran very deep, surely he could find some place where they would not pursue him, far down and into the cold darkness. The rising smoke stacks polluting the atmosphere would send ample signal-blocking particles skyward.

Then it hit him.

Of course.

He snapped his fingers, jaw suddenly hanging a bit slack. The desert region. Technically speaking, there was no need to block the signal with physical objects. Enough interference from the whirling dust storms would render him practically hidden if not actually so. To YoRHa, he'd be a fuzzy blip somewhere in the middle of an absolutely massive cluster of dunes and caves and sand. They'd never find him even if they ran through the place with a fine-toothed comb.

It was perfect.

He about-faced, plotting as direct a course as he could for the desert. As soon as he reached it, he'd be home free. The only stipulations would be making sure nobody followed him and staying within the constantly waxing and waning storms, but surely that would be no big issue. He also would have to occasionally emerge to shake the sand out of his body, but... it was as foolproof a plan as he could come up with. It'd work. It would have to.

His spirits improved somewhat at the prospect of poking YoRHa's prying eyes with a stick. Surviving the past couple days had been hard both physically and mentally, but now it was about to get a whole lot more bearable. Hell, if he could track down A2 he could tell her about his new lifestyle. She'd probably react with disdain upon seeing him again, but maybe, just maybe, she'd accompany him halfway to freedom. Of course, it was reliant on running into her again, and who knew if that would ever actually happen, but the thought brightened his features a little.

There stood a resistance outpost stationed at the funnel that led to the desert. Just a couple of tents, some resting androids, and a storefront. Hopefully they wouldn't get in his way, but he could be sure they wouldn't pursue him should he make it past. There was no need for unnecessary violence. Then again, 'unnecessary violence' had become the tagline for his life over the past week, so it wouldn't surprise him if he met with more harsh resistance.

He wished he'd thought of the idea when he was a bit closer, though. He still had half the city to cross before reaching it, and that was plenty of time for YoRHa to figure out where he was going. If only he had operator 21O to plot the fastest course for him- she was a harsh and unbecoming woman, but she was the closest thing he had to a companion given 2B's eternal cold shoulder. Really, he missed everyone who bothered to speak with him. How awful it was that they'd been brainwashed by YoRHa, led to believe these blatant lies from the moment of their very creation.

And that was what bothered him the most. Even if he did have the opportunity to speak to any of them again, they'd hate him. It was now their job to hate him. The truth weighed heavy on his shoulders but even if he could try to share it with them... they wouldn't believe him. It was all so unfair.

He was drawn from his thoughts by a black speck on the horizon, further down the street. The buildings parted into an open square, crumpled benches and waist-high brick walls with blooming potted trees looming before the ruins of a large church of some kind. Streets intersected here, large multiple-lane roads sprawling out like barbed wire across the ground to form the main causeways. The center of the city. A gentle breeze rustled through the leaves as the black speck took on an android-shaped outline. The everlasting sunlight glanced off of its white hair as he approached.

9S hesitated as he reached the end of the street. He considered turning around and going a different way, but it was too late. He'd already been seen. With a heavy sigh, he thanked his lucky stars that whoever it was didn't immediately jump to the murdering part, and began down the brick path leading to a fountain at the center of the square.

He kept his eyes trained on the android as he approached, head down and breath just a bit heavy. As his features came into focus, no longer blocked by the sun as a cloud began to lazily drift past... 9S came to the realization that he recognized the guy.

"It's you," he said, gesturing to 27S with his android arm. "I remember you."

27S' posture was rigid, his arms balled into tight fists at his sides. His combat armor made a shuffling sound as he stood up a bit straighter. "Y-Yes, that's right."

Tension hung in the air. 9S peered around, nervous, stopping a fair distance away. "Are you... alone?" He asked, hoping he'd be honest.

27S seemed to consider his response, which stood out as an immediate 'no'. But then he nodded slowly. "For now. B-But I won't be for long!"

He was bluffing. He had to be. 9S could see it on his features- the frown on his face, the upturned eyebrows. If he had signaled YoRHa, backup wouldn't be coming for some time. It was just the two of them.

9S refused to take that chance, however. He cut to the chase. "Listen, I don't care if anyone is coming or not. I don't want to kill you." He said, holding his hand out in an attempt to stop things from getting out of hand.

27S pursed his lips. His still-clenched fists shook lightly. He'd obviously come here to try and stop 9S on his own- whether to make up for the deaths of his fallen comrades or regain his own honor, he was unsure. Either way, they both seemed equally nervous about a fight breaking out.

But then, 27S' body sagged just a little. "I don't want to kill you either." He said with a shake of his head.

9S' eyebrows rose. "Oh."

Both of them relaxed, tensed bodies visibly coming to rest. 9S rubbed his shoulder anxiously, wondering what would cause 27S to take sympathy on him. Perhaps it was a shared sympathy between scanners. Maybe his assignment to the death squad was involuntary. Or, perhaps he just didn't have what it took to kill another android. Regardless of the answer, they stood at ease for the moment.

"Y'know, they're all freaking out about you up on the moon base." 27S said with a frown. "The human council has made you a priority target."

9S rolled his eyes. "Great. Just what I wanted."

"Seriously, I've never seen the Commander so mad. What did you do?" He asked, folding his arms.

"You... don't know?" 9S replied.

"No," 27S shrugged, "they didn't tell us anything except that you have sensitive information about the human council. Something about hacking the server on the moon."

A heavy atmosphere descended upon 9S then. He had a very important choice to make- effectively, 27S had just prompted him to talk about YoRHa's little white lie. Granted, there was no way he could know the scope of what he was asking but it still chilled him to the bone. How would he react? Would he handle it as 'well' as 9S himself had? Would the revelation drive him insane? Would he change his tune and decide 9S deserved death? Or would he simply not be believed, like he assumed would be the case?

After a moment of intense deliberation, 9S sighed. "You don't wanna know."

27S took that as an answer. "That bad, huh..." he looked down at his hand, now sighing himself. He looked from it to 9S a couple of times.

And then he understood.

"Oh." He said again, this time with an air of frustration.

"Listen..." 27S said, looking much more conflicted now, "I'm not gonna try and kill you, but you also don't have to die to them either."

9S squinted at him. "Do you really think they'd take pity on me just because you brought me in alive?"

"They would. I know they would." He said, dropping his arm to his side.

Now 9S was standing rigid again. "If they wipe my memory it'll be the same thing as if they'd actually killed me."

27S scoffed. "But they're only trying to do that because you're running from them."

He had a point. A hell of a point, actually. 9S was certain now that YoRHa was unafraid of him spreading the information, and not just because it now seemed he didn't even have it in him to actually tell people. He was a dangerous element, a deserter. He was being hunted for what he was, not for what he knew. And to be fair to 27S, he was right; YoRHa would have no reason to kill him if he just showed back up at their door... but the idea of going back to 2B's side as a brainless idiot felt the same as death to him. Or worse.

"I'm not going with you." 9S said plainly, trying to sound as forceful and tough as he could. At the moment, he felt like neither.

"I wasn't asking." 27S said somberly.

There, in the center of the square, the silence around them suddenly felt very heavy. They stared at each other for a moment, locking eyes as best they could through their blindfolds. 9S could hear the leather in 27S' glove creaking as he squeezed it into an anxious fist again. The wind rustled the leaves once more. Very slowly, they both tensed up again, readying themselves for anything the other might do. To 9S, it was like staring in a mirror, only the mirror was clad like a black knight. Were he not caked in crusty blood, he assumed that'd make him the hero. Funny, he sure didn't feel like one. The wind died again, and in a flash 27'S palm was outstretched toward him.

Immediately static began to fill his vision as 27S attempted to hack him. He recoiled in fear at the thought of being shut down, forced to accompany him back to the Bunker, and stood stock-still in fright. But then his legs screamed at him to move and he dove for cover, landing safely behind a waist high wall housing some dying pottery. He panted, on his hands and knees, waiting for the numbing ache to subside. He thanked the creators of hacking technology for their incompetence- 27S would have to draw a bead on him for a few seconds in order to hack in.

He heard 27S groan aloud. "Come on, this is your only chance!" He said, his voice coming closer as he jogged over to where 9S sat. "You have to see that!"

When he reached the spot, 9S was already gone, having crouched down and hobbled around the corner. 27S looked around, trying to spot his white mop bobbing up and down behind the wall. Seeing nothing, he sighed and began the pursuit.

9S' mind was racing as he scrambled from cover to cover, trying to remain out of sight as best he could. He didn't know what to do. If he tried to flee, 27S would know where he was headed and signal ahead, and then he'd be in even bigger trouble. And he couldn't hide forever, as much as he'd liked to. The thought of him actually having been truthful about backup arriving scared 9S significantly. No matter what, he was stuck. He could see only one way out, and he didn't like it one bit.

27S had gone quiet. 9S could hear the rustling of his clothes but remained unsure if he was actually on the trail or not. The square was large, almost a maze of walls and simple structures. The fountain in the center provided a nice way for him to easily check his position, see where he sat among the rubble and poorly-trimmed bushes. He held his breath, trying not to make any sound that could give away his position.

They'd reached a stalemate. It was only a matter of time until they found each other, and line of sight was all it'd take for the victor to be decided. Whoever hacked the other first would win the fight. Simple as that. Aside from 27S' clunky combat armor, they were nearly evenly matched. Even then, the hacking module he'd scrounged from his own body was outdated by numerous firmware updates. He'd have to be faster, act smarter, and hack quicker.

He couldn't help but feel like smirking. Finally, something he was good at.

A wave of yellow light washed over him as 27S did a detection pulse. It seemed he actually had given him the slip. 9S tried his best not to move, listening for 27S' footsteps. When he zeroed in on them, he noticed they'd picked up the pace and cursed silently. He'd blinked. That was all it took.

Immediately he was racing away from the sound, trying to round the corner and get behind him. Subterfuge was the only thing he had left- trying to take on a scanner in a one-on-one fight was pointless, he'd be hacked before he could even finish approaching. Stealth was his last remaining option. If he could distract 27S, get around and behind him... he'd be putty in 9S' hands.

27S did another pulse. Then another. And another. He seemed to be trying to lock 9S in place, keep him from moving or else give himself away. It was a smart strategy. He froze, this time making a conscious effort to remain completely still, using his machine arm to ground himself. Now he was truly stuck, but all was not yet lost. He realized then that he could tell what direction the pulses were coming from just by looking at them. Obviously they were circular, so all he had to do was follow the curve. He could track 27S without even having to counter-pulse.

And so he waited, remaining as still as the broken statues dotting the square, as 27S wandered around the maze of rubble looking for him. His footsteps drew closer, then further away, then closer again, and then suddenly stopped along with the pulses.

"Seriously!" 27S said, sounding more than a little frustrated. "I came here to help you and you're really gonna throw it away? Why would you do that?"

Some help. Little did he know, 9S had taken the opportunity to get moving. His legs were tired from the effort as he crouchwalked around the edge of the square, sneaking as quietly as he could. He held his machine arm up with the other, desperate to keep it from clanking on the ground as surely that'd give him away immediately.

"Ugh," 27S grunted from somewhere to 9S' left. "The others are gonna be here soon, and if we're still doing this when they are I swear they're not gonna be so understanding."

9S swallowed again, stopping in place as 27S resumed sending out detection pulses.

"You don't have to do this. Please."

That got to him. 9S squeezed his eyes shut as a deep pain in his chest shook him then. It'd been a very long time since he'd heard someone besides himself say 'please'. From the tone of his voice, he could tell 27S was entirely sincere. Misguided, maybe, but he definitely believed what he was saying. 9S felt sorry for him, and sorry for himself.

"Gotcha." 27S said, his voice uncomfortably close. 9S spun around and landed on his rear to see 27S standing only a few feet away, having rounded the wall he was hiding behind while he was distracted. Whether he'd done it on purpose or not, his emotional appeal had paid off. 9S drew in a sharp breath, blinked once, and then the both of them threw up their hands simultaneously. The meter denoting his infiltration raised uncomfortably slowly as static once more filled his vision. His heads-up display flickered and fizzled out then, and his sight completely faded to multi-colored white noise as he heard the whooshing sound of a successful hack.

There they stood, in the space between minds. Uncomfortably circling around each other, their eyes were locked and shoulders hunched. 9S glanced down to see his right arm in its proper place, where it should be, as it flickered and glitched along with the rest of him. 27S looked nervous, but to be fair, 9S felt the same. Now they'd TRULY reached a stalemate. Only one of them was coming out of hacking space alive.

"You're really gonna make me do this, huh." 27S said, his voice breathy and uneven.

"I told you I didn't want to kill you either." 9S retorted with a disgruntled shake of his head.

"Then let the hack go through..." 27S drew a weapon from his back- 9S recognized the futuristic shape of the YoRHa-issued Type 40 sword -and stopped walking. "Or I'll force it to."

"Do you even know how to use a sword?" 9S asked, yanking his own from behind him. He was surprised to find that it was not 2B's sword, but his own.

27S gripped his in both hands and raised it over his shoulder, blade pointed out toward 9S. "I do here," he replied with a shaky exhale.

Sensing the time for talk was concluding, 9S leapt into action. He ran forward, sword drawn into his side, ready to slice 27S into cubes of data. He held his steady, preparing to block the attack. When 9S swung, he hit air as 27S dropped it and hopped a step back instead. He took the opportunity to counter, changing his block into an impromptu swing that arced over 9S' shoulder and cut into his arm.

9S cried out in pain as a red hot electric jolt surged through him. It was a different kind of pain than being cut in the real world, one as if he were being electrocuted. Red, green, and blue squares danced lazily off of him like a blood spray in zero gravity as he spun in a circle to regain his footing.

Immediately 27S was on him again, delivering a flurry of fast attacks thanks to the ergonomic nature of the Type-40 sword. 9S recognized the weapon, he'd been on this end of it several times before. It was the same type used by A2- old, sure, but obviously still more than useful. It made his own sword look like a wooden stick. As he struggled to keep up his block, sliding backward on his heels, he could tell why 27S had chosen it as his weapon.

But 9S knew his own much better. Knew the curve of its sharp steel and the flat hilt much more closely 27S knew his. He pushed his sword upward, smacking the handguard against 27S' blade and knocking his sword away. Using the built-up momentum, 9S smacked him in the neck with the pommel, sending him stumbling backward.

While he was stunned, free hand instinctively clutching his aching throat, 9S drew his sword back to stab him through the chest. He reared back, feeling a strange sensation come over him. An angry heat clouded his thoughts as his hands trembled. Of all the weapons 27S could have chosen here in hacking space, it had to be hers. In all of their encounters as foes, he'd never beaten her. He always had to make the walk of shame back to his own corpse only to find her gone by the time he made it back. 2B suffered the same fate.

Grunting with effort, 9S pushed forward as hard as he could. He half expected 27S to have moved aside while he was lost in thought, ready to chop his arms off for the crime of not wanting to live life as a mindless slave. But as 27S cried out in anguish, the sound of spraying blood echoing behind him as if filtered through a straw, he knew he was on target this time.

9S opened his eyes, only then realizing he'd squeezed them shut and grit his teeth. He was greeted by the sight of 27S, arms spread out like an angel, curled inward against 9S' sword. Static distortion ricocheted out of his back, colors and light and electricity radiating from his sagging form. The sword had gone all the way through his sternum and come out the other side. Pierced like a stuck pig.

27S' free hand moved then and gripped the blade tight, shaking fist curling around and clenching hard. He tried to wrench it out but it was too late, he'd lost too much strength. 9S stared at him, trying as hard as he could not to care. Not to feel anything. Not to feel the horror clawing at his ankles, trying to drag him screaming into the abyss.

Only then did he see that 27S had miraculously held onto his sword despite the force of the blow, and he barely had time to gasp before it was shoved upward into his midsection with the last of the dying android's strength. He cried out in agony as he too curled inward, knees quaking. Stupid, stupid mistake. Fatal mistake.

Both of them slid to their knees at the same time, gripping their respective swords and yelling wordlessly in pain. 27S was choking, sputtering, still trying to yank 9S' sword out of his chest. As 9S fell forward, both swords dug deeper until their foreheads collided. A screaming whine echoed through 9S' ears as he twisted his blade, trying to etch it further into 27S' body. 'Die first,' he grunted in his thoughts, 'for the love of God, die first.'

27S fell backward from 9S' shoving, his knees buckling as he sprawled out on his back. The Type-40 sword left his hand, and 9S felt the hilt scrape on the ground as he inched forward to straddle 27S before he could move. He was still holding on, arms flailing as he bucked and writhed to try and throw 9S off.

But 9S gripped the handle of his sword with both hands and tore it out, squinting against the white hot flash of electricity that blew outward from 27S' chest in all directions. He grunted as 27S' fists batted at his sides, still hard enough to hurt- hard enough to remind him of what he was doing. His vision was failing, once more fading to static and useless blocks of color.

"Die!" He cried out desperately, blindly stabbing 27S again. This time he hit the shoulder, and 27S' weak flailing stopped. He wrenched it out again, every motion robotic and sluggish. Again and again he drove it in, screaming now. "Die! Die! Die!"

27S still held on, sputtering and coughing, shaking in earnest as white hot reflexive tears stained his blindfold. His hands reached up and wrapped around 9S' throat, but he did not have the strength to stop them.

Almost completely blind now, 9S raised his sword all the way over his head, shaking with effort. "Die, god damn it!" He choked out, and immediately 27S went limp as the blade split his forehead with a horrible metallic crunch. The sound etched itself into 9S' mind in an instant, echoing as if reverberating off of the walls of a concrete cell. Or perhaps a padded cell.

As soon as he was sure 27S was dead, the strength faded from his muscles in an instant. He wobbled a bit, then cascaded to the side, falling totally limp as well. Exhaustion claimed him as pain shook through his sorry crumpled form. Regardless of how he felt right now, he won the hacking duel. He was going to live, and 27S wasn't. The weak smile coming across his face terrified him, but he was too tired to care. As he blacked out, there was another ethereal whooshing sound as he was drawn out of hacking space and back into his own body. Then, there was silence.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
With shaking hands, he slid the kneepads off of 27S' corpse. 9S' whole body was sore- wounds inflicted in hacking space wouldn't appear on his real body, but that didn't stop him from feeling them. He'd be covered in angry purple bruises in a few hours for sure. 27S had held on for much longer than he'd hoped, and the screaming agony on the poor android's face said all 9S needed to know. He'd died in exactly as much pain as he was feeling in their little arena, and it unnerved 9S to no end.

A murderer. That's what he was now. He threw the kneepad aside and started on the other one. It was much easier with his machine arm doing the heavy lifting. 27S was very explicitly not trying to kill him, and he'd reacted with violence. Lethal violence.

Effectively, though, he had been. 9S was trying to remind himself again that being reassigned back to 2B was equal with being dead. Two sides of the same coin.

But that didn't make him feel any better about it.

He'd been out for hours, and no backup had ever arrived. 27S had been bluffing after all. To his credit, it was a good bluff, but it was empty nonetheless. 9S had all the time in the world to steal his combat armor and escape. It was pristine- if it'd ever seen battle, he couldn't tell. There was hardly a scratch on any of it. Scanners stuck to the back, never on the front lines, and so there'd be no reason for him to wear the armor in the first place were he not a part of the assassination squad.

9S sighed, dropping the second kneepad as it came off with an angry depressurizing hiss. If he had to guess, he assumed 27S had wanted to see combat but was too afraid of the results. There in hacking space, he fought like he'd been wielding a sword his whole life. Living out his dream of fighting one-on-one, elite YoRHa weapon gleaming in hand. He hoped that when 27S returned to the waking world way up there on the Bunker, he'd abandon that dream cold turkey.

A murderer.

A monster.

That's what he was now.

9S tightened his jacket and started to shrug on the outer vest of the combat armor, on which the pauldrons and elbow pads would be attached. If he was going to be the black knight, then it was his turn to dress like one.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. I've been waiting for this chapter since the beginning of this story. Strap in, it's a long one. I hope you enjoy, and please leave a review to let me know what you think.

It was funny to 9S how much difference an extra bit of weight made. The arm, the combat armor, the internal machine scrap metal... it all added up. An extra 80 pounds of weight on top of his usual metal carriage made him feel bulky, slow and heavy. Androids obviously were designed to carry only their own weight, considering almost anything else they had to bring along hovered lazily behind them as if by magic. Adding any more was unoptimized, even with the harness underneath the combat armor. And maybe that was why combat units were created en masse, because they were handicapped in terms of mobility, leading to more frequent deaths.

9S hoped it wouldn't lead to his.

Stomping along in his heavy boots, he grunted as he drew his sword. The entrance to the desert valley was just ahead and he'd reached the outpost standing at its gates. The tents waved in the wind, a dusty haze already starting to cloud his vision. Dark orange and brown clumps of sand dotted the area now, dirtying the city streets with the after effects of countless storms. If anyone stood in his way, he'd cut them down just like 27S. Nothing was going to stop him now, he decided.

...Only, he knew he was just kidding himself. Having any more un-washable blood on his hands was not high on his list of priorities. He'd heard too many anguished screams in the past few days and the way they echoed, bounced around in his head, did not please him one bit. He still could not shake the image 11G's deep green eyes, nor 31E's flowing blonde hair. By this point, he doubted he ever would.

At the encampment stood a couple of androids- the shop owner, who he knew well, along with a couple others resting there after a presumably long journey. He cursed his rotten timing. There was no way of passing through the funnel unnoticed save for waiting for it to be empty and unguarded, and he really did not have time for that. At least he could be relatively certain these androids wouldn't fight him- it wasn't like they had anything to fight him with. He clenched his sword a bit tighter in his hand as he stalked over, completely void of a plan, waiting for someone to acknowledge his existence.

The shop owner was first to take note of him. Immediately he jumped out of his folding chair, having been lazily sitting around waiting for customers. The panicked look on his face said all 9S needed to know about the intimidation factor of his combat armor.

"U-Unit 9S! It's you!" He said. The other two androids looked at 9S in confusion as he let his sword drop to his side, his shoulders sagging.

"That's right," 9S responded with a curt nod. "I'm going to the desert region."

The shop owner was apparently feeling brave. "To... To hide from YoRHa, I assume. They've told the resistance all about you and what you did to that squad."

He shook his head, attempting to sound stern. "What do you mean?"

"They told us you... you killed the ones they sent after you." He threw his arms wide. "Butchered! Taken apart for scrap!"

9S scoffed. So, that was the story, was it? Throw an android in a lake and watch them sink. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear on those communication broadcasts."

The shopkeep was looking a bit more concerned now. "And why not? You're wearing their armor, aren't you? Well, you had to get it from somewhere."

He opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again. A deep pain stung his chest. Two days ago, he would have been wrong. Thanks to 27S, he was right.

"I'm just trying to survive here." 9S decided upon. After all, it was the truth.

The shopkeeper tightened his lips while he thought of something to say. The other two androids, a man and woman, seemed to shrink back into the other tent, their dust-covered forms muddled by shadow. They held each other- almost certainly closer than just friends. Yet another reason not to kill them.

"Well... I can't let you through, 9S. I'm sorry." The shop owner stood erect- taller than 9S, as most androids were, and attempting to be official.

The sword grew tighter in 9S' hands as he lowered his brow. "And what are you gonna do to stop me?"

His breath hitched in response. "N-Nothing, I suppose. But other YoRHa units come through here all the time. If you go past, I'll have no choice but to tell them about you."

9S exhaled hot air through his nose. On the one hand, that wasn't so bad of a deal- YoRHa would eventually find out he sought refuge there no matter what, might as well come early instead of surprising him later. And plus, he'd have to pass by the valley every time he came in or out of the desert, and that meant even more people were going to see him no matter what he did. If he wanted to hide out in the desert, keeping his identity concealed was no longer an option.

He could tell the shopkeeper was frowning beneath the scarf that covered most of his face. His eyebrows were upturned in concern, possibly a little fright, at the prospect of 9S 'butchering' anyone in sight as he had supposedly done to the YoRHa death squad. A dull pounding anger overtook him at the idea of them vilifying him so. YoRHa's twisting of information making other androids angry at him, he could handle. Making them afraid of him was a much harder pill to swallow.

"Are you gonna let me past without a fight?" He asked in earnest. He figured he may as well at least try to be civil.

He folded his arms loosely, defensively. "I mean... Yes, but I'm sticking to my word, y'know. They're going to come for you."

'Fine then, be that way,' 9S thought. He set his jaw and raised his sword just a bit, the tip pointing toward the cowardly merchant. "That's not a good idea." He said.

The shopkeeper raised his head slightly, staring down the point of his nose at the blade. "I told you, I'm willing to let you pass without any trouble. I'm just doing my duty, okay?"

9S held the sword steady, staring the man in the face as best he could through the blindfold. Then, he sighed, deflating like a punctured balloon. "Okay. Just don't get in my way and we won't have any problems." His voice of intimidation did not convince even himself, so he doubted it'd work on the shopkeeper either.

To his surprise, the man nodded, a bit of cowardice still remaining on his features. "Okay then. Just don't hurt us."

9S sheathed his sword and slowly nodded. "Didn't plan on it."

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
So, it was true, then. The whole world was against him now. YoRHa had made sure the android populace was either living in fear of him or in anger. He was public enemy number one. It made him wonder how many others had been like him. How many androids had he and 2B slain who were in the same position? Vilified by executive meddling when in reality they were simply scrounging in the dirt trying to survive? There was simply no way to know, and that bothered him more than anything else.

They'd pulled the wool over his eyes just the same as everybody else. He could pretend he was aware of their deception all along and hacking the information servers had just brought it to the surface and he was just such a genius... but the truth was, he was fooled by their propaganda just like the rest of them.

It was insidious. A deep sense of control embedded in every YoRHa android from their first power cycle. See no evil, hear no evil, and definitely speak no evil. He looked over his body armor, already starting to get grains of sand stuck between the plates as he walked through the valley. And most importantly, listen to those who own you. The human council was the perfect scapegoat. A mouthpiece set up to spout yet more propaganda, keep YoRHa's conspirators from questioning that they had a reason to be. Keep them from questioning their purpose.

And he was always told by the Commander that a lack of purpose drove androids insane, that the reason they needed motivation to fight was because with none they were completely useless creatures. Fighting was what they were designed for. It was all they knew. In reality, it was just another way to keep them from questioning their reason for existence. It was a lie, just like everything else had been.

The valley opened up into a vast expanse of brown mist. He'd entered into the middle of a storm, wild waves of dunes shifting and blowing around as if he were standing at the edge of a lake. He checked his connection to the Bunker, and a relieved sigh escaped him as he found it to be totally blocked. He'd finally done it. He was truly free. With nowhere else to be for the time being, 9S picked a random direction and began walking. The sand clumped around his heavy boots as he trudged, fine particles kicking up little clouds of dust behind him as he dug in again and again for purchase.

But he didn't mind it much, as his thoughts were more important at the moment. He was still intensely bothered by just how powerful, how far-reaching YoRHa really was. They controlled not just their own soldiers, but the entire android population. It was a trade. YoRHa gave them hope for survival, and the android race provided them with followers. It was almost a cult, really.

The church of YoRHa.

The church of lies.

In his opinion, the whole world would be better off if YoRHa didn't exist at all. Its soldiers could be free to live their own lives, fight their own battles for their own people. No more secret unseen chain of command forcing senseless deaths, letting android lives slip through their fingers like grains of sand. No more lying, no more cruel mistruths designed to force the continuation of an endless war. A literally endless war. If it were up to him, he'd shoot that damn space station out of the sky and watch it fall to Earth like a swatted mosquito.

Granted, he was feeling a bit biased at the moment.

But he had potentially infinite time to think about that now.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
The next week or so- he didn't know, he could no longer even tell time accurately without YoRHa's servers keeping track -passed by thankfully uneventfully. 9S had almost slipped into a routine of sorts. He would wake up after daring to rest for a couple hours, wander aimlessly around the desert in thought, and then watch the funnel leading into the area for any sign of movement. The sands were so bright and shimmering in the eternal afternoon haze that his white hair barely stuck out among the dunes, allowing him to peek at will. When there was nobody in sight, he would dare to leave his safe haven.

However, he'd realized almost immediately that there wasn't much need to leave in the first place. Thanks to A2, his satchel was stuffed with medical supplies, and his combat armor kept the sand and grit out of his various crevices pretty well. His body was in a relatively stable state, for the moment, so there was no need to go scrounging for android or machine parts. For all intents and purposes, he could have just stayed put surrounded by the murky tornadoes forever. Or, at least, until his body was in dire need of maintenance.

Mostly it was to keep himself sane, or as sane as he thought he could be after the past week's events. Being immersed in the sandstorm made him antsy, paranoid. Were he a human, it'd drive his blood pressure to uncomfortable levels. Visibility in the storm was so low he could barely see more than a couple yards in front of him, and anything a few more beyond that would be vested in shadow. Anything further out would be completely invisible. He hadn't run into any machines yet but he knew they were out there, wearing their strange masks and carrying tribal spears adorned with rusted metal parts. He was more worried about YoRHa.

It seemed evident they weren't going to send 2B after him, and he couldn't help but wonder why. If it was her job to silence him, to keep YoRHa's dirty secrets, why send someone else to clean up? Maybe seeing him fight back really was too much for her and she abandoned the job to someone more willing. Maybe she'd already replaced him and found another scanner to bumble alongside her. Had she gotten over what she'd done to him? Or was she still grieving? He had no way to know, and at this point, he didn't really want to.

So, to keep himself from going stir crazy, he eventually started to poke his head out of his safe haven and back into the real world. Not for long, hopefully not long enough to pop back up on YoRHa's radar- though that was a pipe dream. A smarter person may have stayed put, but 9S wasn't so sure he could take it. He'd venture out when the desert encampment stood vacant, enjoy the peace and quiet on the roofs of buildings where nobody could see him. Anyone flying overhead would spot him right away, but thankfully both androids and machines stuck to the ground for the most part. There was nothing to see, nothing to do. Just him and his silence. He was basically free of YoRHa's chains.

But during his peeping, he saw others. YoRHa androids with no idea of their treachery. Poor souls sent to run errands in the desert, hopefully not in search of him. How pristine they looked, with their flowing black coats and dresses, trying hard to tell themselves that the gruntwork they were doing was for a good cause. For the cause of fighting the good fight. For the cause of ending the machines. For the glory of mankind.

His peace and quiet wasn't so peaceful after all. Instead, 9S was stewing in his anger. Not white hot rage, but a disgruntled tooth-grinding fury that hid under the surface. What really rattled his metal bones was the sheer impossibility of it all. He wanted nothing more now than to put a stop to YoRHa's madness, but he hadn't the slightest idea how. They had forces beyond comprehension and could make more out of practically nothing in a matter of minutes. They had lasers, guns, and bodies. He had a sword that wasn't his and 3/4ths of a body.

If he could get back there, to the Bunker, he could end it no problem. The backdoor put in by the machines was so tantalizing, so alluring to him. It was the easiest way out of this nightmare. He could take down the Bunker and then EVERYBODY would be like him, sans the murder spree. It'd be like throwing a stone at a goliath. He just needed a slingshot to get himself in the air.

But, just like everything else, it was only a matter of biding his time. He didn't expect the blueprints for a flight unit to just fall into his lap by way of carrier pigeon... but something had to give. 9S was keenly aware that up until this point, time had been running out for him. Running for his life had made him tired, eternally winded, and aching. But now he had the thing he required more than anything else: Rest. And for that week, he did rest. He dreamt- not literally so, only during his wandering of the dunes -of better days when he stood beside 2B. Days when he was blissfully unaware of the underlying cruelty of YoRHa, of their partnership. He missed being naive, easy to please, a yes-man who did their bidding and was more than happy about it. He was so much happier then.

Only, it was a lie, wasn't it? He'd realized the truth and been slain a hundred times. Maybe two hundred. All of those good memories he thought he had were segmented between hours of panic, fear, and running for his life from his killer. Really, 2B was the reason for his suffering. With her, he could have done anything. Alone, not so much. If he saw her now, he wasn't sure if he'd fall to his knees or draw his sword.

Maybe both.

At the moment he was bracing himself against the wind, holding a hand in front of his face to block the storm. The machine arm made a better door than a window, but there wasn't much to see in the desert anyway. The weather conditions were less than ideal, but at least he didn't have a squad of assassins breathing down his neck. That didn't stop their ghosts from hovering over his shoulder and whispering in his ear, but he was ignoring that for the time being. What he couldn't ignore, however, was the feeling that he was being watched. Slowly over the week it had crept up on him, an antsy feeling that tingled in the back of his neck. He had tried to push it down but it just wouldn't subside. Something had changed. Someone knew about his refuge in the desert. Maybe the shop owner had kept to his promise and told whoever passed through about him. Maybe YoRHa had gotten a lock on him during one of his excursions to seek refuge from the howling wind. Maybe his sheer luck was finally about to run out.

In time, his paranoia would prove more than appropriate.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
9S stared out into the distance for a solid minute. He peered as far out as the twisting sand would let him and saw nothing. No ominous shadows, no ghostly forms, no hunting party come to pin him down and tear his heart out. Just his own gawking self and miles of empty desert.

But he knew he heard something. He had to have. It was too loud to just be his imagination- like the sound of a jet engine screaming overhead. It had to have been a flight unit passing by just above him, just out of his sight. No machine could have made a sound that ear-splitting. The thought worried him- he hoped that the stormy desert would conceal him even from above, but he had his doubts.

Regardless, there was nothing there now. If he had truly heard a flight unit and it wasn't just his delirious mind playing tricks on him, it was gone. Possibly a YoRHa soldier returning from a mission, taking off from the desert to leave for the Bunker. It made about as much sense as it being someone coming to claim his hide.

Yet, he couldn't relax. Someone was out there. He knew it. Idly, he held up his hand to do a detection pulse but the heft of it was an immediate reminder that he'd lost that ability. The machine arm creaked as he clenched it into a fist. Whoever was here, whoever was following him- or not -was as blind as he was.

Grunting in frustration, still afraid to take a single step, he yanked his blindfold down around his neck and squinted against the sandstorm. Stock-still, he held his hand up to his forehead and peered around once more. Nothing. Just brown and orange and a whole lot of tiny bugs squirming in the sand. Right now he knew how they felt.

He cupped one ear, ignoring the sand trickling against his hand, listening as intently as he could. Being this paranoid was right. It was necessary. Especially in this visibility. Gently, he shrugged the blindfold back in place with his shoulders and a single one of the machine arm's bulky fingers, like pushing up a pair of glasses. He strained and strained, but all he could hear was the angry sound of dust whirling and buzzing, cutting through the air.

But then... Very faintly, somewhere off in the storm...

"Do you really think the target is around here? My compass is going crazy."

A male voice. Somewhat on the higher register, though muddled by the sand. He couldn't hear the response from whoever was with him, but obviously they were not alone. The phrasing of the question could only mean one thing: Someone was coming for him.

He turned around and slid down the dune on his heels, coming to a stop at the bottom and breaking into a light jog. Whoever it was, he was not interested in meeting them face to face. Losing them would be easy in the storm, but he doubted they would simply go away if he waited it out. YoRHa had persistence and time on their side. Obviously.

And yet the voice was still coming closer.

"Can't wait to get back to the Bunker and get all this damn sand outta my boots." The voice said again. This time, he heard a shushing sound. Loud. Conspicuous. Trying to sneak up on him.

9S broke into a run. This group was tracking him, somehow. They might have a scanner with them- could be the voice he heard -and they had a lock on his signal. He had to lose them somehow, get far enough away that the lock broke and he was once again shrouded by static. They had to be using some kind of advanced technology he'd never heard of, some frankly alien piece of futuristic tracking tech designed to seek out rogue androids and crush them like flies. Something he could not dream of. Something he could not hide from.

He came to a stop and looked down at his shoes.

Of course they were following the combat armor's heavy and deep boot prints.

9S sighed. No way to cover that up. Dropping his arms to his sides, he gazed around. He'd slid down the dunes into a small valley, wide and flat and full of deeply packed-in sand. The built-up hills surrounding this little pocket carried the sand right over it, and he could see the cracked orange earth beneath the sea of gravel. Might have been an oasis at some point before getting consumed by the suffocating dust and heat. A nice, wide, practically flat track of land to stand his ground on.

No time like the present, he supposed.

"9S."

From beside her, he craned his neck. "Yeah? What is it, 2B?"

"Not you."

9S' breath hitched in his throat. There was a duo of shifting sounds from behind him as two pairs of boots joined him at the bottom of the hill. He didn't want to turn around. He very, very much didn't want to turn around. He knew that voice. He knew both of those voices. And he knew very well that if he turned around right now and saw what he was sure was standing there, his cracked mask might finally shatter.

"9S." 2B said again, her voice even and complacent. He heard the hum of her drawn sword. Heard her companion make a concerned grunt.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

"Hey, wait a minute... is that..."

2B nodded. "Yes."

"What... the hell?"

Taking a few deep, angry, shuddering breaths, 9S turned around with a heavy step and came face to face with 2B and his own aghast self. The other 9S wore a look of horror, of confusion. 2B was, as usual, expressionless. Impossible to read. Cold and calculated as ever. 9S' lower lip trembled.

2B gestured to him with her free hand, speaking to the impostor. "You were killed during a mission, but your body survived. Without any help from YoRHa, you went mad."

The other 9S looked back and forth between 2B and the real deal. "Hold on... That can happen? That's really possible?"

2B nodded somberly. "It's a flaw in the resurrection system. The transport pod created another body while the old one was still alive."

The impostor chuckled dryly. How 9S missed that chuckle. "I... uh... I don't know if I'm okay with fighting myself."

"No choice," 2B said. "It's not you anymore."

The other 9S eyed 9S' machine arm. "Yeah... I can see that."

But he was not having any of it. Finally after all this time, his pent up anger, his frustration at 2B, boiled over and spilled out. "What a bunch of bullshit." He grunted.

Neither of them said anything, but 2B's attention did snap right to his furious expression. Good. He hoped she was listening.

"It's a lie. She's an E-class unit, she was the one that tried to kill me." He pointed an accusing finger at 2B. "Now she's come to clean up her mess."

The impostor turned to look at her, jaw hanging just a bit slack. "2B... is that true?"

She scoffed, but he could tell by her frown that his words hurt. "Of course it's not. Don't listen to him, it's just corrupted data."

His doppelganger nodded. "Yeah, like that rogue android we fought the other day. Viruses are pretty messed up."

They both stood staring at him, just casually talking while he had his silent mental breakdown. He now knew how frustrating it was to be on the other end of their banter. His chest hurt, a deep sweltering pain that crushed him, made him want to cry. How cruel it was of 2B to act like nothing was wrong. She owed him at least some dignity. She owed him so much.

"That is some nice combat armor, though. Why can't I have combat armor?" The impostor was casual, laid back. This was all a game to him. Just fun. Just his duty to YoRHa. Was he really like this?

2B turned back toward 9S. "Now's not the time for talk. Get ready."

"Yeah, yeah."

"As usual, one affirmation will suffice--"

"Enough of this shit!" 9S said, yanking his sword from behind his back. "If you're here to kill me, then go ahead and try. I've come too far to die now."

His expression grew dark.

"Especially not to you, 2B."

She set her jaw, obviously sneering at him beneath her blindfold, then struck her usual combat pose. The impostor followed suit, imitating her to a T as he once did what felt like so very long ago now. He drew his own sword, both of them now armed and ready for a fight. 9S was well aware that he had just egged on a two-on-one battle, one he was very certain he could not win. But what choice did he have? Running was no longer an option, and now that YoRHa had sent 2B to clean up her own loose end... obviously things were getting dire.

The impostor threw up his hand but 2B reached over and smacked it back down. "No, don't. You could get infected."

"Yeah, but we could just go back to the Bunker and get it cured-"

"Not in time. Not from this far out." Her voice was harsh. Stern. Caring. It hurt 9S so badly to hear it. But he knew the real reason for her dissuasion; if 9S hacked himself, obviously he would discover the same information and need to be killed all over again. An endless cycle of death, even here.

9S tried to breathe as evenly as he could, tensing up his whole body, ready to react to anything. 2B crouched just a bit lower, heels digging into the sand, and then both she and the impostor were simple blurs in the storm, dashing in opposite directions. He held his sword at the ready, preparing for whichever one of them would reach him first. This was it. This was what he'd been anticipating. The lynchpin keeping his sanity in check. Maybe with enough knocks to his head it would finally shatter right here, right now. Maybe that was what he needed to win this uphill fight. What he needed to kill them both.

The impostor reached him first, lighter and not having to traverse the sand in high heels. Their swords clashed as he went for a high overhead swing, which 9S blocked with relative ease. His clone's blade slid down and down until it disconnected from his, striking the sand between 9S' legs with a thick brown cloud of dust as he hopped backward. Immediately he followed up with a spin that brought the sword back to chest level, but 9S was already holding his vertically to block it- several loud 'clang's rang out as the clone spun a couple times, but it was useless. 9S was coming to the realization that fighting himself meant he already knew his double's fighting style. Definitely a benefit.

Now it was 9S' turn to spin as 2B came from behind him, grunting with effort as she swung wide in an attempt to slice his spine. He put his machine hand's palm flat against the back of the blade and stopped 2B's attack in mid-flight, causing her to wobble as she rebounded. The impostor was winding up another swing of his own, and 9S took the opportunity he had to elbow him in the chest. He stumbled just long enough for 9S to reel back with his machine hand clenched tight, arm swiveling like a piston as he slammed the bulky fist into the clone's chin.

The blow sent him sprawling, knocking out of the fight for a moment. In the split second that had passed, 2B had recovered from being bounced away and was coming at 9S again. The sword being in his left hand suddenly became a disadvantage as he held it up across his body to stop her. The two copies of her sword shot sparks in all directions as they collided, pushing 9S' version back into his chest. He held steady, but both of 2B's hands were clutched on hers and the force was pushing him over.

Thankfully his mind was quick to formulate a plan for him. He couldn't help but wince as he planted his boot hard in her stomach and pivoted his body and sword, using her weight to toss her to the ground and send her rolling. Dust covered her clothes as she coughed hard from the impact. He turned just in time to see the other 9S rushing straight at him, sword outstretched.

"Come on, come on!" The clone growled, obviously intimidated by the idea of fighting himself. 9S was deeply unnerved, but it was turning very quickly into white hot anger. Fuel for the fire inside him. He dove to the side and rolled, slowly thanks to the heavy armor but just fast enough that the other 9S sailed right past him. Back on his feet, he held his sword at the ready and backed up, trying as hard as he could to put some distance between the three of them.

The impostor skidded to a stop on his heels, giving 9S a glance over his shoulder before stooping to pick 2B up off the ground. She took his hand and leapt to her feet, hoisting herself back into her combat pose with little effort. She glared at 9S, sand and dust gently falling from her hair and clothes. Though she said nothing, the look of disdain on her face spoke wonders. It shot a pang of guilt up 9S' spine. He tried hard to ignore it, but he couldn't. He felt bad for hurting her, even after all of the pain she'd caused him.

Said guilt evaporated as she held her sword straight up like a samurai and began to sprint right for him, her teeth grit with anger. It seemed she'd expected this to be easy. It was just as personal to her now as it was to him, and 9S considered that he was wrong. She wasn't cold, calculated, et cetera. She was furious. Only, before, it'd been under the surface. Now it was hot, bubbling lava on top, spilling off of her as she made to close the gap between them.

9S, however, had seen his opportunity and he was damn sure going to take it. He about-faced and scrambled away, sprinting as fast as his clanking legs would take him. In the armor he was slower than 2B, slower than himself even. But he had the advantage of not wearing high heels in the desert. He high-tailed it up the dunes, scaling them with relative ease thanks to the grip provided by his boots. 2B was not so lucky, digging the heels in but finding no purchase, slipping several times as she hurried after him.

He heard her grunt somewhere behind him as he fled, not even daring to turn around and see how far back she was. Their pair of footsteps quickly became only his, however, and he bothered to check. No sign of her, just the angry whirling of the desert storm. He was once again alone in the fog. Off in the distance, he heard 2B shout above the sandstorm, "Get back in the flight unit and search overhead! He went that way!" She sounded frustrated, full of righteous vengeance he'd never heard from her before.

9S squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head as he continued to sprint on and on. Of course it couldn't be that easy.

It wasn't long before he heard the flaming jets of a flight unit soaring overhead. The sound sailed right past him, but he knew that just meant his doppelganger would be waiting up ahead for him to run blindly into a sword. He craned his neck skyward as he ran, squinting once again to try and spot the thing buzzing around him. No sign of it, but that didn't mean it wasn't present.

9S had no idea where he was going anymore- it didn't matter as long as he stayed inside the storm and didn't slow down. The jets blew past him again, and then again. Circling around him, trying to trap and confuse him. Or, maybe the impostor had totally lost him and was searching blindly. If he still knew himself as well as he figured, that was the more likely explanation.

He hoped the storm was blocking his communication with 2B from the way she'd yelled, but 9S couldn't be so sure. Long distance broadcasts were a futile effort, but shorter ones probably still went through even with the static blocking the way. It was troubling. Without hearing them physically talk to one another, he had no clue what they were planning or where they were.

Then, trails of hot blue and pink cut through the orange mist above, parting it like a wafting cloud of smoke. The clone was flying by close enough that he could see the flight unit's jets, make out the robotic shape of the thing. He definitely had 9S' position now. Obviously he knew better than to just hover over, and 9S cursed his own self for being so logical-minded. So far it'd kept him alive. Now it was working against him.

Slowing to a stop, 9S turned around in place, searching the skies for it as it zoomed by in wide arcs. He watched sand turn into swirling spirals as the flight unit cut gaps in the storm, briefly allowing the sky to shine through before being covered immediately once again by dust. Signaling his position to 2B, no doubt, and what better way to do so than a big flickering spotlight?

But as sand and sun cast parallel lines of shadow across his face, 9S thought of an idea that was terrible and had a high chance of completely screwing him. Were he in better conditions he'd never have considered taking such an action, just a fleeting thought that would hop the fence to greener pastures as soon as he'd thought of it. But now he was stuck. It was either keep running and hope he lost them, or get risky.

He clutched 2B's sword just a bit tighter. Risk was all he had left.

With a sigh and a shake of his own head- a reminder of how awful of an idea this was -9S tossed the sword to his machine hand. It was barely able to grasp it, the palm a strange circular shape and the fingers far too fat to clench around the handle. With some fumbling, however, he eventually managed to get a good grip on it. It felt completely weightless in his hand, as if he were holding a stick instead of a sword nearly as tall as his body. 2B's sword crackled with hungry energy as he held it aloft, rolling his shoulder to brace against the weight of the machine arm.

The flight unit soared by again as 9S cocked one leg and arched his back, reversing the sword in his palm so that it faced the ground. Then, very slowly, tensing up every muscle in his arm, he drew it up and backward. Only one chance at this. He stood there, holding it out as if he were a god about to toss a great lightning bolt, waiting for the impostor to dare to pass over him.

On the next flyover, he took aim, locking on and adjusting the trajectory for the weight of the sword. 9S stared up at the empty sky, listening to the jets fade into the noise of the storm. For just a moment, there was silence. A calming both of his surroundings and inside his head. A strange peace came over him. He'd have to time this perfectly, and he'd decided it would be better to actually pay attention instead of letting his mind wander. Very slowly, the noise of the engines grew louder again. Louder, and louder, and louder they grew until they were nearly right over him. 9S cocked his shoulder back, and with the mighty force of the machine arm, let his arrow fly.

He was carried a few steps by the raw kinetic energy of his toss, boots skidding on the sand. It left his hand like a javelin, emitting a high pitched whistle as it cut through the air at sonic speeds. There was a split second of silence, followed by the angry rumble of an explosion far above. He was showered in sparks and red light as black smoke began to trail outward from where the flight unit once soared.

Immediately 9S took off in the direction of the trail, watching its shadowy form through the sandstorm as its engines slowly died and it fell to Earth. It seemed that as soon as it hit, the doppelganger lost control, and now it was falling down to the sand to skip off like a rock on the water. Loud metal thuds echoed across the canyon as it bounced, spraying jets of sand in all directions. Like a smoldering comet it shuddered to a stop, pitch black smoke expanding out of the cracks in its plates. 9S finally reached it, and upon gazing at its occupant, his eyes widened.

Dead on, literally so. His throw had been so perfectly timed that he had stuck the clone almost directly through the chest. The sword had gone straight through the middle of his lower chest and out of his back, sticking him to the flight unit like a pin through a butterfly. It'd hit with such force that 2B's poor tortured sword had finally snapped in half at the handle and only the jagged edge of the blade remained. It still crackled with busted, resonant energy as 9S stood there gawking. Gingerly, he reached toward the impostor's shoulder to dislodge him from the machine and hopefully right it so he could climb in. Shock ran through him, however, as the clone's hand suddenly yanked out of the flight unit's gauntlet and grabbed onto his arm.

9S was startled as the clone came back to life, wheezing and crying out as the pain of the blow hit him all at once. His hand fell limp across 9S' forearm as his body writhed and bucked. It seemed he posed no threat, being totally unable to actually move. Paralyzed, just like 9S now stood in fear. He took a step back and watched as his own self coughed and choked- he tried to reach for the blade and pull it out but there was no handle, nothing to grab onto. His hands became slick with blood as he scrambled to dig it from his torso with dark red gloves, fingers prying apart his wound with the echoing crunch of hard plastic. It was no use- even if he did manage to get ahold of it, he hadn't the strength to un-stick it from the flight unit's metal exterior.

And so 9S just stood there and watched as the clone coughed and squirmed and died, slowly and agonizingly. His lower lip trembled. That was what he'd looked like. That was what 2B saw back then. She looked at that, at his frantic scrambling and pitiful attempts to live, and just walked away. How could she live with herself after seeing something like that? How could she act like it was normal, to do that to your compatriot? Your friend? The clone shuddered a few times, and with a wheezing exhale, went totally limp.

This time, there was no resistance when 9S reached in and pulled the body out of the flight unit. He squeezed his mouth shut to suppress the rising bile as the clone slid off of the sword instead of it coming free, and he tried not to think about the mulching sound its insides made being the same one his own would make. He tossed the body to the side and out of the way, glad that it wasn't the first time he'd had to manhandle his own corpse- though it was the first time he'd watched himself die. With the machine arm's help, he was able to yank the jagged blade out of the flight unit's back and toss it aside as well.

He drew in a breath as he spotted a certain valuable holstered in the flight unit's lower torso compartment. gripping the handle, feeling its warmth and familiar grooves, he listened to the sweet sound of metal on metal as he unsheathed his own sword from the suit. The black blade glinted off of the flight unit's pristine- though bloody -form. His eyes followed the curve of the steel from hilt to tip and back. It was exactly the same weapon. His eyes grew misty as it shook in his trembling hand. Not a single scratch on the blade out of place. Precisely the same. Exactly as he remembered.

But there was no time for reminiscing as he heard footsteps cutting through the storm behind him. Heels. He turned around to see 2B standing at the edge of the fog, her posture as calm as ever. Sword already in hand, she was staring holes in 9S that chilled him to the bone. She glanced at the twisted form of the deceased clone, and then back at him.

"Are you satisfied?" She asked, her voice as bitter as the deep frown on her face.

9S considered not responding. He wanted to dash straight for her, duck her first attack and remove her head from her shoulders with his counter. How could she do this? How could she be this cold? And for THEM?

Instead, he scoffed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

2B was somber. "Do you have any idea what's been going on in your absence?"

"No." He shook his head. "And I don't wanna know."

"Yes, you do." She said. However, he was being honest. He didn't give a single damn about YoRHa anymore, about any of the bastards that had caused him such misery. A week ago, sure, he would have been as curious as he always was about every little thing. But now, he was past the point of caring. All he cared about now was giving them what they deserved.

When he didn't respond, 2B's glare seemed to deepen a bit.

"This isn't going to stop until you give up." she said grimly. "You know that."

"Then it's gonna go on forever." 9S spit back. "I'll kill them for as long as they come after me."

"They won't be coming after you anymore. I will."

"Well, then I'll end this right here." 9S said, gritting his teeth.

2B was incredulous. "Do you feel any regret in the slightest for what you've done?"

That upset him. Immediately his pent up anger exploded out of him as he barked out, "Do you?!"

"I don't have anything to regret." She lied. Of course it was a lie.

"You left me to die!" He yelled, posture becoming stiff and wound-up.

She nodded, hardly seeming phased. "And I've done it before, too." She said with disdain. "This isn't the first time and it's not going to be the last."

He took a step toward her, jabbing his own chest with his machine hand. "And how do you think that makes me feel? I'm not just another 9S fresh off the factory line! I'm a person!"

"And if you keep rebelling like this there never will be another you." 2B responded quickly- perhaps waiting for him to say something along those lines.

"So what? Do you think I care about him," 9S gestured to the corpse, "or any of them? The only person I give a damn about is myself."

2B nodded again, taking a step toward him to match his. "That's precisely the problem, 9S."

He breathed hot air through his nose. "Bullshit, you know what I meant! I thought you cared about me, but it was all a lie, just like everything else!"

"Believe it or not, I DO care for you. Do you think I wanted you to suffer like this?" She sounded hurt. He'd definitely struck a nerve.

"If you didn't want me to suffer then you shouldn't have tried to kill me." He grunted. It made pretty obvious sense to him.

"I had no choice." 2B's voice was quiet now.

9S struck the sand with his sword. "Don't you lie to me! Everyone else did, and I'm not gonna let you do it too."

"Do you really believe I would have chosen to kill you?"

"Over someone else doing it? Absolutely." His words cut her like a knife. At least, he hoped they did. She deserved it in his opinion. Every little bit of it.

2B raised her sword to point it in his direction. "You're right."

9S was silent.

Her breathing grew heavier. "Anybody else would be cruel. They'd kill you and then forget you ever walked beside them. I won't. You don't deserve that."

He 'tsk'ed at her. "Who are you to say what I deserve? Do you think I deserve to die, too?"

She swallowed before responding. "No. But that doesn't change the fact that you have to."

"Says who?! Why take orders from them when you don't want to? Why go on when you know they don't deserve to be listened to?"

2B gestured widely. "Because what else am I supposed to do, 9S? Disobey them and end up like you have?"

He growled. "Yes! You have no reason to go on obeying their orders like a dog!"

"My reason is to protect you so that you don't end up like this!" She raised her voice to match his. She sounded so strange, being emotive and yelling. So unnatural. So un-2B-like. It was a side of her he'd never seen, and it was distressing to look at.

9S scowled. "Well, you sure did a great job of that, didn't you?"

Now it was her turn to be stunned by silence.

He continued uninhibited. "Or do you really think this counts as protecting me? Saving me from a worse fate or some crap like that. But there's nothing worse than this, 2B, I promise. Absolutely nothing."

She slowly got into her fighting stance, rocking back and forth on her heels as she prepared herself. "And I promise you, I will make this quick. I won't let you suffer any longer."

"You're insane." He spat at her, getting into his own combat stance. "I can't believe I ever cared about you."

"I will always care for you, 9S." She said quietly.

Neither of them moved. 9S wore an expression of absolute disgust, while 2B's mask wasn't even chipped let alone cracked. She seemed honestly saddened that things had turned out this way, but 9S didn't buy her justification for one minute. She was a coward, like the rest of them, and now he knew as much with absolute certainty. Before, he couldn't hate her for what she had done. But now that he knew why, he was furious.

2B shot forward, taking off toward 9S like a rocket. She ran with one arm across her chest, sword out to the side, preparing to swing a full semicircle just in case he attempted to dodge around her. He knew it already just from her posture. He'd seen her do it a hundred times. Tensing in preparation, he stood stock-still as she ran at him at a full cip, and when she reached him their swords collided with an angry thunderclap. He couldn't swing to meet her as it was coming from the left side, but he held his blade flat and his teeth rattled as both of them bounced off.

She didn't even hesitate before going back in, delivering a flutter of angry light swings that were so fast he struggled to keep up. Memories ran through 9S' head in white flashes as she crowded him, forcing him to back up and lose his footing while she advanced. He held steady as her arm and sword shot around like a whip, her jaw set and cheeks scrunched behind the whirling blade. After several seconds of trading blows, 9S intercepted one of them and pivoted his body to throw her sword to the side. If he could get it out of her hands, she'd be useless. All he had to do was disarm her.

Unfortunately for him she held onto it, and while he was off kilter from turning she delivered a punch with her left hand right to his gut, where his stab wound was already throbbing angrily from the exertion. She grunted as she punched him again and again, knocking the wind out of him. When he finally doubled over, she gave him a pointed kick in the stomach with her heel that caused him to bow his head.

This time she didn't bother aiming for the chest, instead raising her sword high to cut his head right off. 9S crouched low as she went for the swing, springing up and using the momentum to hop backward and out of the way. His side was now aching fiercely, but all it did was make him angrier. He forced himself to ignore the pain for now.

2B remained relentless, dragging her sword behind her on the sand as she went for a hard uppercut to recover from her downward stroke. Only after she swung and missed did 9S realize she hadn't been aiming for him, instead kicking up a ton of sand to block his vision. He put up his arm to block it from getting into the blindfold but it was exactly what she'd anticipated. He was only barely able to connect with her blade as she dashed through the falling cloud of sand to run him through. It was only a small miracle that he deflected it successfully.

He dodged to the side as she continued past him, spinning around on her heel in an attempt to catch him off guard. Now it was his turn. As she turned to face him again, sword still outward from her pirouette, he raised the machine arm and delivered as powerful of a swing as he could muster. There was a particularly sickening 'crack' as it landed square in the side of 2B's head, sending her spiraling to the side. She stumbled awkwardly over her own heels, spinning in a circle as she sprawled to the dirt.

9S raised his sword to strike her- anywhere, it didn't matter, as long as she couldn't get up -but he was too bulky and slow in his armor. Not even letting her grip on her sword falter, she rolled onto her back and then kicked 9S away, getting back into a tense crouch in one fluid movement. She swung her sword at the air in case he tried to move back in, breathing heavy and ragged as she grunted wordlessly.

They both swung in opposite directions, locking swords right in the middle. Sparks radiated in all directions as they both pushed toward each other, blades pointed skyward and faces drawing near. 2B stood just a bit taller thanks to the heels, but 9S wore the angrier snarl, and now was not the time to be sizing one another up anyway. 9S had the advantage again. He grabbed the end of his sword with the machine arm, using its coiled-up energy to shove 2B away, hard.

She skidded backwards on the sand, using her momentum to start spinning in circles, sword held close to her body. Using the point of the heel and her sword's kinetic energy, she spun and spun like a blender ready to chew 9S up. Something about this move seemed familiar. The whole situation seemed familiar. He had her on the ropes, and she was fighting defensively, and then..? He couldn't remember. The data was muddled, halfway corrupted. He lowered his sword to chest-level and blocked again and again as she whirled around, squinting at her in thought and fury.

She suddenly dug the point of her opposite foot into the sand, halting her spin in mid rotation. Facing him from the side, she held her opposite arm out for balance and retracted her elbow to begin fencing at him. He took in a sharp breath, leaping backward and curling in his stomach to avoid getting skewered. She pulled back and struck again, and again, once more forcing him to back up as she crowded him. Seeing her with her posture bent, arm pointed straight out... it triggered something in his head. He knew this attack. He knew this moment.

He knew what was coming.

He swung to meet each of her stabbing motions, knocking her away at the same time as backpedaling, his dexterity being stretched to its limit. 9S watched as she performed the same moves as before as if coreographed, stabbing forward, then from the left, then right, and then... nothing. He took an extra step as she held back her swing, having gotten him into a rhythm and then held back to intentionally throw him off. 2B sucked in a harsh breath as she put her palm flat against the end of the hilt, readying a straight thrust right for his black box.

Not this time.

The world seemed to slow as 9S dodged her fakeout, turning his own body to the side to match hers and avoiding the stab. Her arm shot right past him, their bodies almost colliding- she'd expected the momentum to be stopped by his torso, and so was unprepared to hit air. 9S took a step back for some room, and before she could retract and prepare to counter, he took his opportunity. Pivoting his shoulder on its axis, he swung his sword straight up.

There was a deep red starburst of blood as he sliced 2B's arm right off at the elbow in a single stroke. Her lips parted into a wordless cry of pain as his sword went skyward, carrying the dark paint across both of their bodies. Immediately she started to jump backward, to put some space between them and figure out what the hell to do now, but 9S wasn't going to give her that chance. Mimicking her and her endless ballerina moves, he did a spin of his own, sword coming back down with his arm to slash her lower body. 2B screamed again as 9S' blade chopped through both legs like a hot knife through butter, sending her tumbling off of them and into the dirt with a heavy thud. The arm holding the sword hadn't even hit the ground yet.

2B stared at her legs as they fell over into a heap, then her arm still clutching her sword tight, and then 9S. Her breathing was heavy, disrupted, ragged with exertion and agony. She bit back another scream, instead grunting hard. He stepped over her legs to hover above her, sword pointed down at her chest.

Wordlessly 9S watched her as she scrambled on her remaining arm, trying to get away, to formulate a plan, to do anything but lay on her back and die. Her head whipped around as she tried to think of something. She gritted her teeth, surely realizing that only the two of them remained. There was no help for her now.

An ugly red and orange streak of blood followed her as she continued to skitter back, seemingly not even caring that 9S had barely taken a single step to keep up with her. She lost her purchase on the sand then, landing hard on her elbow and knocking her strength away just as he'd done with her arm.

She cried out in pain, not even bothering to hide her wail as her single remaining thigh kicked and writhed on the ground. The sound echoed in 9S' mind. It hurt him more than anything else had so far. Seeing her so pathetic, so useless and weak... it was destroying him inside.

"I'm going to end this." 9S said to her, his expression grim and miserable.

She squeezed her eyes closed to brace against another wave of pain. "You can't. Th-there's, there's nothing you can do. Even if you kill me, they'll j-just tell me to cuhh, come back."

"That's not what I mean." He shook his head. "2B, I'm going to end YoRHa. I promise."

She propped herself up on her elbow, grinding her teeth now. "Hhahh, it's n-not going to work. Whatever you're going to do, it won't w-work. We can't stop them."

He lowered his sword, staring at 2B with his head cocked. He'd never seen her so... worthless before. So genuinely frightened. If he could gaze into her eyes through the blindfold, he probably would be able to spot the fear of death staring right back at him.

"There's a backdoor put in by the machines on the Bunker." He said. "It was in the reports I read. All I have to do is hack it, and it's all gone for good."

"For g-good..." She repeated in a warbling murmur. "If you do, we'll ah- all die."

"Yeah." He said plainly with a small, somber nod.

"Don't." She commanded, despite being in no position to do so. "Don't you d-dare."

"You're gonna die anyway, what does it matter to you?" He grunted. But he felt bad immediately after the words had left his mouth. She hadn't asked for any of this shit. Her words from earlier now resonated in him. She was wrong to obey YoRHa, but she truly thought she didn't have any other choice. Cowardly, yes, but it wasn't entirely her fault.

Her lip trembled- hell, her entire face trembled. Shuddered, more like. Her voice was as broken as her body. "I d-duh, don't want to die. I don't want to die."

Was this what he wanted? To see her so broken down? YoRHa had forced this on them, made them do this. Made them into killers. Pets. Dogs that would sit still, roll over, play dead at the drop of a hat. And now this self-obsessed murderer boy and this pathetic weeping girl were all that mattered. The fate of android kind was in his hands now. Revenge was in his grasp. He'd done what he thought he needed to do and it resulted in the destruction of the few things he really cared about.

He looked over at the crumpled flight unit. There was only one thing left for him to do, and then they could all finally rest.

Without another word, he stalked slowly past 2B's sorry form. She sniffled, craning her neck to watch him go. He left bloody footprints in the sand as he went, heavy boot prints that clumped it together in wet chunks.

2B's breathing got heavier. "Wh-where, where are you going?"

"To the Bunker," he said, not even breaking pace. "To finish this."

She swallowed. "You're not going to..?"

He stopped then. "No. I can't kill you, 2B. Not you. I'm sorry." He said, unable to turn to face her.

Her voice was a meek whimper now. "You're... leaving me like this? To die?"

9S gestured to his dead doppelganger. "His comms are stronger than yours. If you salvage the parts and get out of the storm, you can call the resistance for help."

Her breath hitched as he turned over his shoulder to look at her, as A2 had done to him what felt like ages and ages ago now.

"How badly do you want to live, 2B?"

One by one, he yanked the pieces of his combat armor off until he was clad only in his jacket and shorts, same as he once was. They were still dark and leathery, caked with blood. Just like he remembered. Holding his machine arm out and sword in hand, he grunted in pain as he sliced through it in one fluid motion. It wouldn't fit in the flight unit, and so it had to go. He had no more use for it at this point anyway. The machine arm, twitching and flexing, fell to the ground with the same heavy thud 2B's body had made. Thankfully it didn't hurt all that much- he didn't have to hook up the pain receptors. But emotionally... a different story. Thoughts of A2 ran through his head again, and he couldn't help but shiver.

He grunted, yanking the flight unit to its feet. He was already technically the owner of the thing, so it'd work flawlessly save for the right side boosters. The thing was rickety, smoldering, and damaged... but it'd get him to the Bunker. He turned around and jumped onto the platform, reached across his body to start the boot sequence. As he grabbed the left flight stick and prepared for takeoff, he took a glance at 2B's frail torso. He'd blasted off into the desert storm before getting a good look, but he could've sworn her arm was outstretched, reaching toward where his clone's dead body lay on the sand.


	9. Chapter 9

Click, clack, click, clack.

The sound of heels on reflective tile flooring. In time with a rhythm slightly too fast to be a comfortable walking pace, they echoed down the mostly empty halls of one of the Bunker's inner rings.

Click, clack, click, clack.

Short hair bouncing along to each side as she walked, individual clumps of messy strands blinked out of her eyes every few steps. A silvery blonde color to match the gold trim of her outfit. The tight leather of the operator's garb squeaking, stretching as she high-tailed it to her destination.

Click, clack, click, clack.

Down the halls she went.

  
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9S watched as the Bunker drew closer and closer. Still a tiny gray speck on the horizon as he burst through the atmosphere with an explosive roar, he tried hard to formulate a plan. He had one arm, was critically injured, and was fairly certain the flight unit's landing protocol was non-functional. He was angry, distressed, and shaken. Haunted.

He was a mess. If he could draw his sword fast enough upon entering the hangar, he could carve a path to the server room through anyone who stood in his way. There he could barricade himself in and directly interface with it, to execute the backdoor and let it do whatever it may to destroy the Bunker and everyone in it. Including himself. That would rid the world of YoRHa's control in one fell swoop.

Obviously, it wouldn't be that easy. Couldn't be. There were too many of them and only one of him. Going on a killing spree against trained soldiers would've been hard enough with two arms to grip his sword with, but in his current state it was a pipe dream. It was all he had to go on. Banking on chaos and luck yet again. He shook his head, watching the speck grow exponentially larger as he approached. If they had a lock on him already, he had no idea. It certainly wouldn't take long. God, how he hoped it'd be over soon.

  
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She was staring at her data pad, its dimly lit screen- brightness manually adjusted for comfort -practically overflowing with information. A constant, exhausting feed of everything she could need to know at a moment's notice. The outside temperature in the desert was 31 degrees celsisus. The humidity was, as usual, 0%. 2B and 9S had entered the sandstorm and lost contact forty-eight minutes and six seconds ago.

She looked again. Forty-eight minutes and seven seconds ago.

Now eight seconds.

She sighed. Pretending the waiting wasn't driving her stir-crazy was very much ineffective. It was an important mission for 9S: Send himself to kill himself. Just thinking about it made her brow form a hard line. What a horrible business it was. What a horrible way to go.

But she was still trying not to care too much. It was not in her job description to care, after all. She was to supervise and direct and nothing more. She was to avoid getting attached, and to avoid letting him get attached. For his own sake.

Unsuccessfully brushing her bangs out of her eyes with her free hand, she slowed to a stop in the middle of the hallway. She'd overheard a conversation several days prior- what 49O lacked in work ethic, she made up for with her lack of an inside voice. She'd been talking to her E-unit, assigned to the task of finishing off the previous iteration of 9S. Obviously, the team YoRHa sent had failed.

Shaking her head, she let her arm and the data pad drop to her side. She took a few steps toward the window and gazed out at the vast black expanse before her. It was a conflicting feeling. She'd seen him die over and over, and this time the prospect of NOT seeing it was affecting her. How would 9S react to killing himself? What would 2B's excuse be, or would she even bother coming up with one? Fresh copies of 9S' consciousness would believe anything she said. It was cute in a strange way.

The sky seemed particularly empty today, void of stars as if they'd turned their back on her. In reality it was just light pollution from the sun's beaming unmarred rays, but it felt somewhat poignant. There was nothing out there to see. Just pitch darkness. Another 9S snubbed out.

She brushed her bangs from her eyes again. Once more they fell right back in place. Frustration marked her features. No matter how many times she combed her fingers over her scalp, the strands always landed in exactly the same spot. An endless cycle of trying to keep her hair out of her face. Everything felt annoyingly metaphorical today. What a waste of her allotted break time.

With an annoyed grunt, she went to turn away from the window, but something caught her eye- a strange shimmering reflection somewhere far below the Bunker. An approaching flight unit from Earth, aglow and basking in the mirror sheen of the sun's light. A pure white specter blasting toward their little base like a rocket.

Operator 21O's heart sunk, but her chest remained tight. Her breath hitched. It had to be one of them, either 2B or 9S. The fact there was only one flight unit instilled a fear in her- the previous 9S had killed one of them, but which one? Who had fallen at his feet? She was unsure which would be worse: 2B returning alone, triumphant, or 9S returning alone, shattered. Having watched 2B die at his own hands. Of course, they weren't his own hands in the literal sense, but still... what did the previous 9S look like? Did he wear scars from fighting off the assassins? Had he changed his clothes? Was there fear in his eyes when they put him out of his misery?

21O's lower lip was trembling. She put a stop to it immediately by righting her posture. No emotional connection allowed. Not permitted. She would not let herself succumb to feelings at such a pivotal moment. Regardless of the outcome, 9S would need support in the ensuing days while he recovered from the experience. She was more than willing to provide, as long as it did not involve showing she cared for him even the tiniest bit. She was keenly aware she could not handle it.

She squinted at the flight unit as it continued its approach, trying to discern anything about its occupant from the way it flew. Straight as an arrow, at mach speed... almost too fast to be a safe approach to the hangar. Definitely so, actually. It was almost certainly 9S, then. He never bothered reading the requesite operational safety instructions before hopping right in. YoRHa technology was more than intuitive enough even for someone as excitable as he, but it still gave her just a little pinprick of annoyance whenever he took to the air without fastening the safety harness.

Turning away from the window for real this time, she began to stride back toward the command center. Her break was now over and if she didn't hurry she'd be late for her shift. With 9S assumedly returning to the Bunker, the Commander would want to debrief him, and she wanted to be there for it... to hear all of the details, whether they be painful to listen to or not.

However, she didn't get far before there was a dull rumble that shook the fluorescent lights strung overhead. A loud sound, practically explosive in nature, rang out through the halls as she wobbled on her heels.

21O put her hand on the window for support as she looked around, hoping to lock eyes with some other YoRHa unit, someone to meet her concerned gaze and reflect it. Anything to calm her sudden rising anxiety. The halls still stood empty. Instead, she glanced above at the lights, swinging back and forth gently like a pendulum as they returned to rest. Their gentle humming was thankfully quite soothing. She began walking once more, but not in the direction of the command center.

The quiet, polite voice of a fellow operator came over the intercom, and 21O broke into a sprint. "Impact in the hangar. Medical Team C, report to hangar, immediately. Repeat, Medical Team C to hangar."

  
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'Stupid lousy god damn no good useless landing protocol' was 9S' last thought before the flight unit punched through the slowly opening doors of the hangar like a bullet through sheet metal.

It seemed he'd damaged the core computer of the flight unit when he stuck the doppelganger to it like a shishkebab, and now he was paying the price for it. When he activated the landing protocol to dock with the hangar, nothing had happened. No error message, no manual control switchover, nothing. It was just stone-cold dead and sending him straight at the hangar doors before they could even open for him.

The magnetized floor of the hangar yanked the momentum from the flight unit immediately, sending it rolling along the ground with splinters of the hangar door in tow. He rattled around in its clutches, still stuck tight in his seat. It bounced and shook and skidded, accompanied by an ear-splitting metal scraping until it eventually shuddered to a stop, leaving a thick black skid mark and a ton of barreling smoke in its wake.

9S hit the floor face-down with a grunt of pain as the gauntlets let him free. His whole body was aching- his side especially -and this was not helping. So much for his heroic sacrifice, not that it was all that heroic to begin with. Whatever plan he might have had, it was gone now. With the flight unit on top of him, he'd have to wiggle his way out from underneath it, and he just didn't have the effort to spare for that right now. Let them take him, he didn't care at the moment. If they had their swords drawn when backup arrived then he'd draw his and whatever happened would happen.

"Son of a bitch..." He hissed angrily through clenched teeth. He tried to push onto his elbows but there just wasn't enough room. He couldn't reach his sword either, it was stuck in the flight unit's holster which was- again -currently facing the floor. He wouldn't be able to draw it even if he could get his hand on the hilt.

"Get it off of him. Go, c'mon, push!" He heard a voice from above and craned his neck, squinting to see past the twisted metal. The lights of the Bunker were bright, a hot white. He recognized the white coats and padded black shoulderpads of the station's on-site medical staff as a small gaggle of them surrounded the flight unit. He heard grunts, male and female, as they rolled the broken mech suit off of him. It clattered to the side with a loud thud, and then he was completely exposed.

"Oh, man, his arm." One of them said. Hushed noises of agreement were followed quickly by further questions.

"What happened to him? Where's 2B?"

"Why didn't he slow down?"

"Maybe the flight unit's systems crashed?"

"Maybe the door didn't open properly?"

"Is the Commander coming?"

"Can you hear me, 9S?"

He blinked awkwardly, trying to raise his head.

"9S? Can you hear me?" One of the members of the medical team was staring him straight in the face, crouched down with her hands on her knees. She wore a veil reminiscent of the standard operator outfit, and was craning her neck to try and catch his gaze.

"Anything?" Another member of the staff asked from beside her.

She stood with a shake of her head. "He's dazed, probably from the impact."

"Maybe something went wrong with the flight unit."

"Might be the missing arm." A third said. "I'll file a bug report with the flight unit development team."

"Do it later," the first officer said, "we need to get him to R&D and find out the extent of his injuries."

Panic coursed through 9S' veins then as a sense of awareness hit him. He'd accidentally caused the perfect distraction- the perfect excuse for him to be confused, in a haze, and unable to respond. All of those things were currently true, but he realized then that he had inadvertently created a cover story. But it would last about 5 seconds longer if they got him to R&D and started taking him apart.

An angry voice in the back of his mind was yelling at him. 'Do not let them take you, do not go into their custody! Get up!' But what was he to do? Spring into action, steal a sword, and start spinning like a top until they were diced to ribbons? He didn't have nearly the strength for that at the moment.

"Can he stand?" One of the officers asked.

"Let's find out. I'm going to pick you up, 9S, okay? Try to stand up." The woman in the veil knelt down beside him and hooked her arms under his, careful not to touch the frayed stump where there was once a forearm. He groaned uncomfortably as she grunted with effort, bringing him into a hunched over stance on his knees. The officer that'd asked the question came over then, and each of them took an arm, very carefully raising him to his feet.

Though 9S' legs felt like butter, he stood on his own without support when they gingerly released him. Wringing his wrist, he gormlessly looked around on wobbly legs. Four medical officers surrounded him, and a small crowd had gathered at the entrance to the hanger- no doubt gawking at the spectacle. He was sure he looked like absolute hell, like a man defeated. He certainly felt like it at the moment.

"I can..." 9S squinted and shook his head as a harsh whine entered his ears. Something had shaken loose and it was giving him a headache. "I'm fine. I can walk fine."

"He speaks!" One of the medical staff said. "Welcome back to the world of the living."

World of the living, indeed. For how much longer, he wasn't sure. Among the small gaggle of onlookers stood his operator, taller than most of them thanks to her heels. He tried very hard to avoid her concerned stare.

"Come on, 9S, let's go down to R&D so they can put your arm back on." The woman gave him a gentle pat on the elbow, a very subtle push toward the door. She had a kind voice, soothing. It made him hurt inside in a way that thankfully was non-physical, a good contrast to his aching muscles. Perhaps 'thankfully' was the wrong word, but he didn't bother berating himself for it as his head was still spinning.

Though the voice in his mind was still pleading with him not to follow them to R&D, he didn't have much choice. He saw a hell of a lot of swords among the crowd- making a scene right now would be suicide. Playing along was a terrifying concept considering how bad of an actor he apparently was when it came to keeping his knowledge of YoRHa a secret, but there was nothing more he could do at the moment. He was in their clutches, safe for now, but only in the name of deception. If they examined him, they'd find out the truth, and then he'd be stripped for whatever parts could be repurposed like an alien dissection.

The crowd parted like the sea as the medical staff walked two-and-two in front of and behind him, leading him out of the hangar and away from the wreckage he'd caused. On his way out, he heard one of the hangar staff say something about getting the repair crew wrangled to fix the hangar door, mumbling about unnecessary expenses.

Down the halls they went, as if 9S were being led by a firing squad to his post. It definitely felt that way to him, maybe not so to the rest of them. Thankfully they weren't asking questions, probably assuming he was still too rattled to answer them. To be fair, he was, just not in the way they were likely guessing.

R&D was as sterile as ever. Pure white tile, pure white walls, pure white cabinets and beds and machinery. Somewhere in one of the back rooms, the whirring of an industrial saw was ringing out. No doubt performing a mad science experiment on some new technology. Beyond the back rooms lay the assembly room where YoRHa units were manufactured. 9S wondered how many times they'd seen him shamble out of the series of assembly machines and wander off like a zombie, to one of the tables the doctors were now trying to sit him down at, to have his brain plopped in and reset to the same exact default memories every single time 2B slayed him.

"Hop up, 9S. Take a seat and we'll power you down to do the analysis." The woman said, patting one of the plain white beds. 9S eyed the machine hovering over, specially tailored for opening up YoRHa units to poke at their insides. The mechanical arms were already gently rotating in place, just waiting for a willing subject to lay down and be pulled apart.

He swallowed dryly. There was no time to wonder whether or not he could do a good impression of himself. He mustered up his least dead-inside sounding tone of voice and cleared his throat.

"Do we... have to do it right now?"

The medical officer blinked at him. "Well... yes, we do. Otherwise we won't know how hurt you are."

He thought hard about his response before speaking. "Maybe I should go talk to the Commander first? The mission was a pretty important one."

She still had her hand on the bed, and he could see her purse her lips through the veil. "I don't think that's a good idea, 9S. It can't be that vital."

He breathed hot air through his nose. "2B is dead."

"Oh." She let her hand drop awkwardly to her side. "Uh... Right."

He watched carefully as a similarly awkward silence fell over them. She glanced around a bit, looking at the other officers, who had gone back to their work. One of them gave her a noncommittal shrug. She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to think of something to say.

"So?" 9S prompted her to make a decision.

She sighed. "Yeah. You're right, that is important. How about this- let us put your arm back on and do a quick external examination. We'll get you a change of clothes, and we'll do the internal exam after your debriefing. Okay?"

"Yeah. Thank you." He nodded. Whether 2B actually was dead or not, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to tell them that. He was glad he was so attached to her once, it was allowing him to sound genuinely emotional now. Convincing enough for the likes of them, it seemed. The officer led him over to a table for him to sit at and left to go get a compatible arm from the back rooms. In the meantime, he ran a still-gloved hand through his greasy hair and sighed. He definitely was not going to the command center, dearly hoping they would not try to lead him there in a conga line as they did from the hangar. His disguise absolutely would not hold scrutiny under the Commander's imposing gaze. Even then, his cover would be blown very shortly anyway if they bothered to do a simple analysis of his user ID.

The medical officer commented on the clean cut upon returning with an arm to stick on him. 9S didn't respond, hoping she'd assume he didn't want to talk about it. He very much didn't, but not for the same reason. They sat in silence as she took off his dermal plates with surgical precision, attaching the YoRHa android arm with relative ease. He wondered what her kindness was a byproduct of. She must have seen such terrible things in her time on the medical staff- such grievous injuries, androids nearly dead but just alive enough to make it back to the Bunker. She and the rest of the R&D team had seen the true horrors YoRHa had to offer and yet they'd maintained their faith. It was so strange to meet people willing to converse with him without swords drawn. The change of pace was unnerving, to say the least.

Did these people deserve to die? They'd just saved him, without even questioning who he was. Sure, they thought he was the replacement they'd manufactured in this very lab... but they still had nothing but trust. They knew nothing of his mission, only that he was injured and alone and it was their job to help. It was just another assignment from YoRHa, their designated staff position. Even so, their job being assigned to them didn't dictate their personalities. He thought of 21O and 6O- same job, polar opposites. Did they deserve to die for his cause too?

But it wasn't just HIS cause, was it? It was for the good of all androids. The Bunker had a couple hundred androids on it, if that, and the only tools in existence that could manufacture more YoRHa soldiers. It was the central hub for all YoRHa operations, and without it, the organization wouldn't exist at all. It was a shame... but he'd come too far now to just give up because he felt bad. He could barely live with a couple of deaths on his conscience. He was glad he was going to die too so that he wouldn't have to live with hundreds.

"All done." The woman said from the other side of the table, standing up. 9S shook his head a couple times to break out of his thoughts, then looked down. There it was, porcelain white and completely unmarked. A fresh arm. He turned it over, flexing and wiggling the fingers, watching the veins in his wrist extend and stretch. The knuckles popped as he did so- stale air hissing through the tiny cracks in the outer layer. The arm's first owner. It was brand new. He was whole again.

"9S," she caught his attention once more. "We're having fresh clothes delivered to your room. We'll take you there so you can change before going to see the Commander, okay?"

He shook his head perhaps a bit too quickly to be nonchalant. "Oh, no, it's alright. I can go there on my own-"

She held up a hand. "Please. We're already taking a big risk here by not doing an exam. The faster we can get this done and get you back here, the better, okay?"

His mouth was dry again as he stood up a bit straighter. "Okay."

"26H," she turned to one of the medical staff, "let's go."

He looked up from his computer, bored expression lining his features. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure." Taking his sweet time shutting down his console, he joined the two of them and off they went. They led 9S to the door, thankfully walking ahead side by side instead of trapping him between them. When the trio stepped out into the hallway, however, a familiar voice cleared her throat.

Standing awkwardly against the opposite wall, pretending as if she hadn't been following the group to R&D, was 21O. She stood stock-still, looking between them and presumably deciding why she had cleared her throat. Whenver her eyes flicked to 9S, he felt a sting of hurt and perhaps a bit of panic.

She nodded then. "Hello."

The two officers shared a glance. "Uh... Hi, 21O." The woman said, her lips once again pursed in apparent confusion.

"I'll be taking 9S to his room. You can go back to your duties." Her voice was plain, to-the-point, and proper as ever.

The kind woman- whose name 9S still did not know -was frowning now. "Why? If we go with him we can explain his injuries to the Commander."

21O just stared without responding for a moment. Then, as if emerging from a trance, she shook her head. "I am heading in that direction already. It'll be a shorter trip and he will be back here faster. Besides, don't you have a bug report to file?"

The man, 26H, rubbed the back of his neck. "Well... I was gonna do it later."

21O's eyes squinted just slightly. It seemed she'd found her stride. "The quicker you file the report, the quicker the flight unit development team can get to work. You wouldn't delay them in order to go for a pointless walk, would you?"

His posture stiffened a bit and pointed a drifting finger at the veiled woman. "U-Um, no, ma'am. It's just, she wanted me to come along, and..."

The medical officer turned to him. "You didn't file the report? What were you doing on your computer then?"

"I was going to! I just had some work to finish up first is all." He shrugged halfheartedly.

21O folded her arms, data pad gently tapping against her elbow as she drummed her fingers. "Perhaps you should go and do that. The Commander would be displeased if you turned up in the command center without doing your write-up through the proper channels first."

The woman sighed, turning to her co-worker. "She's right. Let's just go do it, I don't want to get yelled at again. But please," she gave 9S a concerned and frustrated look, "come right back here when you're done."

9S gave her a reassuring nod- or at least, he hoped it was reassuring. The two of them disappeared back inside and the door closed behind them, leaving him alone in the hallway with 21O. He wasn't sure if he was better or worse off walking with her than them. At least they didn't have such piercing, accusative eyes.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
Click, clack, click, clack.

9S was listening to her heels as she walked in front of him, staring at the ground and trying not to think about how completely screwed he was. She hadn't said a word to him since leaving R&D, and technically still hadn't spoken directly to him at all.

However, the lack of conversation may have been a boon, as being around her made him incredibly nervous. He knew very well that 21O was extremely observant. If he acted even a little bit un-9S-like, she'd notice. The solution then, of course, was to simply pipe down.

But what if THAT was un-9S-like? What if he was just psyching himself out and he should be blabbering on as usual? He barely had any idea what constituted acting like himself anymore. He was so tired and disoriented that he could barely remember what he was like a week ago. Part of him wanted to fall face-first on his bed and fall asleep and damn the consequences afterward. Part of him wanted to freak out and run down the halls screaming.

21O's voice was quiet. "9S," she finally spoke. She did not break her pace, nor turn to look at him over her shoulder.

He took in a breath before responding. "What's up?"

"Make sure you change into your new clothes, alright?" She murmured, her voice a lot softer than it had been with the R&D staff- but still pointed as usual.

"I... planned on it. That's what we're going to my room for, right?" He asked, though he already knew the answer.

"It is." She nodded, then returned to silence.

What a strange conversation. It sent a chill down 9S' spine- he couldn't help but wonder what she meant. There was no way she could know of his plan. Obviously he hadn't told a soul, and in the desert she couldn't have been monitoring 2B or the other 9S. Maybe it was just her playing mind games to get him to behave, as she so enjoyed doing what felt like ages ago now.

He cleared his throat, trying to make conversation. The quiet was starting to get a little eerie. "So... Anything new happen since I left on the mission?"

21O shook her head, her hair bouncing a bit as she kept her gait. "No. The machines that were mobilizing and heading toward the desert are still on their way." She sighed. "We've pinpointed their destination- a small group of buildings near the center of the valley. Our energy readings from that area are still steadily increasing."

9S furrowed his brow. Machines heading toward the desert? His sense of timing was impeccable- if he'd stayed there for a few more days he may very well have run into them. He thanked his lucky stars they hadn't tried to ambush him. It wasn't out of the ordinary for the machines to congregate in large clumps, but they hardly ever actively went somewhere. He was suddenly very glad 2B attacked when she did.

"I told you all of this yesterday," she said wistfully.

9S' eyes went wide. Whoops. "O-Oh. Guess I forgot, heh," he tried to chuckle, hoping that was appropriate damage control.

"Please pay more attention during the Commander's briefings in the future." She replied, her voice dull and still carrying that plain tone. It unnerved him some. It was as if she were on autopilot. As if she were reading from a script.

Paranoia was biting at his jugular again. 9S was trying very hard to keep his cool, but he was quickly running out of time. There would be no way for him to remotely interface with the Bunker, he was surely still locked out even though he was literally standing in its corridors. It was frustrating, to be so close and yet still so far from his goal.

The silence thankfully was giving him a chance to think, he needed it and needed it fast. If he could hack the terminal in his room, it would give him full access to the Bunker's servers all the same. That way the console could serve as a middleman and he wouldn't need to connect to the Bunker with his own technology in the first place. It wasn't much to go on, but it was all he had. He just hoped it wouldn't put up too much of a fight because someone somewhere on the ship would absolutely be alerted immediately. He'd have to be quick about it.

"We're here." She said, nodding to the door to his room. They slowed to a stop, and she turned to face him as he wordlessly held his hand out to open it... and nothing happened. Of course. The doors were ID-locked, and his didn't match.

"Uh..." He dropped his hand, feeling pretty stupid for trying. "Must be the new arm."

She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed. "That's unlikely. I'll open it." She held up her data pad and tapped away on it for a second, fingertips prodding seemingly random points on the display as she gave him the necessary access. There was a pleasant tone as the door acknowledged 9S as its new owner and slid open with a 'thunk'.

"Thanks. I'll be back in a minute." He nodded to her, and of course she didn't nod back. She followed him with her head, those icy eyes still piercing his back as he went inside.

The door slid shut with the same satisfying whoosh, and 9S let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for days now. Peace at last. The tension drained from his posture as he eyed the fresh set of clothes on his bed, neatly folded and separated by article. They'd even provided him with a new set of boots. All they needed to do now was stuff him full of preservatives and put him in a casket and he'd be ready for his funeral. He flexed the fingers on his new hand, gazing over at the terminal as it blinked and beeped and let him know it was alive and well, waiting for input.

And yet, he couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. He felt a presence in the room, very close behind him, and he spun around with a sudden burst of anxiety... to see that 21O had followed him in.

His posture sagged once more as he relaxed. "Uh... Operator, I... need some privacy, y'know?"

But then he gave her more than a quick glance. She was leaning against the door, arms at her sides, hands curled into tight little fists. Her brow was furrowed. Disgruntled. Lips, in shadow behind the veil, curled into an angry frown. She was obviously upset.

She ignored his words. "What happened to you?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

9S raised his head slightly, staring down his nose at her. All that tension that had just drained from him came back with a vengeance. He hadn't been fooling her from second one. From the moment she saw him in the hangar, she knew. Of course he couldn't fool her. How dim he was for thinking he could.

He swallowed, holding up both hands in an attempt to keep things nice and calm. "It's... Not what you think, I swear. It's not... I'm not..." His voice was shaky. He had no idea where to start, what to say. He was trapped.

She nodded. "You are. You're the one that's gone rogue." There was no point in denying it any further. He was caught. Screwed again.

9S' breath quickened as he began to panic. He had no desire to fight her- he very easily could kill her, even unarmed, but there was no way he could ever do that to her. And she knew it, too. From her confrontational stance and her angered stare, she was very much aware of it.

As his rear bumped the window against the far wall, he realized he'd been instinctively backing away. Out of fear, most likely. "Please," he said, "Just... Don't freak out. Please."

Of course, he was the one freaking out and they both knew it. His plan, whatever little of it there had been, was now falling apart. He was caught red-handed, and there was a whole lot of red. His mind was already racing, trying hard to formulate an idea. If he hacked her, shut her down, he could steal her data pad and lock the door. That might keep the backup she'd surely called for out long enough to interact with the terminal. It was so close. It was mere paces away.

She'd ratted him out. She had ratted him out in secret and it was over. He'd tried as hard as he could, struggled for as long as possible, but A2 was right. It was only a matter of time. He was as good as dead now. YoRHa was going to serve up his addled brain on a platter.

21O brought him out of his panicked thoughts with her voice. "Why are you here?"

He struggled for an answer that didn't involve his plan to murder the whole station. When he couldn't come up with one, he settled for a compromise. "I'm... I came back here to end YoRHa. I can't let all this killing go on any longer."

That shook her a bit. "Oh." She said, weighing his answer.

9S suppressed a shiver that rose to meet her confused expression. She looked almost hurt. "I have to. I have to stop it, so that nobody else ends up like me." He said.

She stood up a little straighter, out of her leaning pose. "And how did you plan on doing that?"

9S' breathing grew more ragged as his frustration and pent up anger overtook him again. His fists clenched and he drew inward just slightly.

"The only way... is to destroy the station. That way YoRHa can never recover. Nobody will have to suffer any more of their lies." He repeated himself, this time with more fervor. "I have to."

21O's stare was so intense 9S feared it would cause spidery cracks to appear in the window behind him.

"Do you?"

He grunted, and then the anger spilled over. "Yes! They're brainwashing all of these androids into fighting for a lost cause! YoRHa has everyone fooled into thinking they're fighting to preserve mankind but they treat us like slaves! They don't care about us, we're just pawns in a pointless chess game. It's gonna go on forever unless someone does something about it but nobody will because they're being controlled!"

He jabbed his chest with his thumb. "People like me, people who know the truth- we get hunted down like animals, and for what? To hide their secrets? To protect the lie? This can't... end, until YoRHa ends. Nobody understands that the only way to stop it is to destroy it! And I'm gonna do it by blowing this stupid station to hell where it belongs-"

"9S." 21O hadn't moved a muscle. "Perhaps you should consider this instead."

She held her data pad up and began to tap away at it. He stood in silence, lower lip quivering in anger, as she adjusted her posture and stared down at the thing for a solid minute.

"There." She said, with a final decisive poke at the screen.

He shook his head, still simmering. "There... what?"

She barely even glanced at him. "I reset your user identification. The server now considers you to be a fresh iteration of personality number nine."

9S' shoulders sagged. "What? So?"

"So," 21O said, righting her stance, "as far as the YoRHa systems are aware, you are a new 9S fresh off of the production line. If anyone checks it, they'll see nothing amiss."

"Why would you do that?" He asked, still genuinely confused.

"This way, you have a clean slate and there do not have to be any..." She lowered her head just slightly. "...unncessary casualties."

9S was baffled. "Are you... actually suggesting I just pretend like nothing is wrong?"

"Yes."

"That's ridiculous." He spat.

"Is it? It seems fairly reasonable to me." 21O clutched her data pad a little tighter. "The staff you've encountered already believe you to be the current 9S, and when 2B returns she won't know the difference either way. You can return to your former life with the knowledge you have."

"And go on living a lie?" His reply was a harsh whisper.

"But you'd be living." She said with a single nod.

9S scoffed. "I don't wanna live. I'm fine with dying here and now. If you knew what I've been through, you'd understand."

"I know more than you might assume." She said somberly. Then, she shrugged. "The others don't speak quietly enough. Girls will gossip."

He took a second to let that sink in. People on the ship knew about what he was doing down on Earth? How much did they know? How much COULD they know? They had to have been tracking his position, and they had to know he'd wiped out the assassins. But beyond that, there was a whole world he thought was his own that now was much less private. He wondered if any of the other operators sympathized with his struggle, or even were aware of why he was struggling. If 21O was aware humanity was long gone, and the rest of them were too... how could they live with themselves? Were they really that strong?

Was he really that weak?

21O had taken note of his sudden existential crisis. His terrified expression probably gave him away. She began to take a step closer, but thought better of it and attempted to root herself firmly in place.

"Look," she said pointedly, "this is your chance to start over. You know what you know and that can't be changed, but destroying the station, destroying everyone here... it won't erase what's been done. To you or anyone else."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Why? Why are you trying to help me?"

"Because in the end, everybody deserves a chance to live. Don't you agree?"

Didn't he? At some point he must have. Before the events of the past few weeks he believed in justice, the moral good. He believed in protecting the weak, those who couldn't protect themselves. He believed in the discovery and preservation of knowledge such that a person's legacy could outlast their lifespan. That was one of YoRHa's guiding principles- your memories are more important than anything else.

If you don't know who you are, if you don't remember where you came from, you are worth nothing. You're just a body with a brain steering it around.

When did he stop caring about who he once was? Could he even remember that much?

"Give it some thought." 21O said quietly.

When he stopped shivering and cracked his eyes open, what was probably several minutes later, she was gone. At some point she'd about-faced and left and he hadn't even heard the door close behind her. Now he was truly alone, and thanks to her, nobody was coming for him. His cover preserved, his ruse successful. He was safe.

9S' legs felt like they were made of melted rubber. In a daze, he turned to his bed, his fresh clothes, his fresh life. His blood-crusted jacket was stiff as if it'd been starched. The leather on his shoes and gloves were frayed, one boot long since missing its shiny golden buckles. Socks and shorts a chafing black velvet and stained with dark red. Gently and with shaking hands, he removed his visor. The blindfold left a thin wisp of sand in the air as he let it fall to the floor. Like the last little grains in an hourglass.

He mindlessly changed into his new outfit amidst the dull heat clouding his thoughts. Fastening the new boots, sitting on the edge of the bed, he finally came to some sense of awareness. They hadn't given him a new visor, probably to save on having to construct a replacement.

He didn't mind. 9S could see just fine without the blindfold now.

And so there he sat, alone with his thoughts. He was to report to the command center for his debriefing about the mission he hadn't gone on... and then what? 2B would surely raise hell when she returned, if she wasn't back already. But a quick examination would show a 9S with a fresh ID, fresh clothes, and two arms. He would flawlessly get away with murder. Her murder.

Was it worth it? All that killing he'd done, the struggling to survive, just to end up right back where he started. What was the point? He knew YoRHa was a sham, but so what? All that knowledge had ever done was hurt him.

He ran a hand through his still-dirty hair. It deeply bothered him to admit it, but 21O was right. These androids, all of YoRHa's androids, they were pawns just as he'd said. They didn't deserve death just because they'd been misled to believe in its cause. Going by his own logic... the only one that deserved to die in this case was himself.

He'd caused so much pain, and had so much inflicted upon him. It was all just another cycle. Hurt and be hurt. Kill and be killed. Live and die, or in his case die and live. It wasn't just YoRHa that was pointless, it was ALL pointless. The head bites the tail, no matter what.

He tapped his heel anxiously as he leaned over, elbows on his knees, thinking very hard about what he wanted to do now. He very well could just go on pretending like nothing was wrong, either until he slipped up or something happened to cause the end of YoRHa. He still maintained he wasn't that good of an actor, but it'd gotten him this far so it likely could continue to work. But just thinking about living like that made his heart feel like it weighed a thousand pounds in the pit of his stomach.

Destroying the station was no longer on the table. Out of the question. It hurt him to consider that, too- he'd spent so long stewing in his anger, thinking about his revenge, that he'd become keen to the idea of killing hundreds of people at once. The greater good was a load of bullshit. There was no greater good, and nobody knew that now better than him. It really was all just chaos and luck that had led him to this point safely and alive.

Chaos and luck.

He knew what to do.

His feet were suddenly carrying him out the door and down the halls, but he wasn't going to the command center. He'd read in an old world gardening book that the best way to trim a weed was to pull it up from the root. The terminal in his room didn't have deep enough system access to do what he needed, even with hacking.

Though he was no longer going to destroy the Bunker, in the end he was headed to the server room anyway. And thanks to 21O, nobody would stop him. He left his bloody clothes and the blindfold and the last little bits of doubt on the floor of his quarters. He wasn't coming back.

  
( ) ( ) ( )

  
9S was bathed in a deep red light as he confirmed the hacking protocol that would grant him access. The massive metal door before him, nearly as large as the hangar's airlock shuter, slowly slid open. A loud, angry hiss came from beyond the door as cold steam billowed out toward him, ruffling his jacket.

He stood inside the innermost ring of the Bunker's donut-shaped layout. The heart of the beast, opening up for him to drive a spear into it. The server room was borderline freezing, which was understandable. The amount of heat generated by the servers powered the electricity for the entire transport network. Along the ring were dozens of rows of towering supercomputers capable of computations beyond his wildest imagination at speeds faster than he could blink one eye. The veins of YoRHa, running electronic blood through the entire system. He was lost for words. It was marvelous.

In the center of the ring, standing tall and proud above its peons, was the Bunker's main server. It was remarkably similar to how it appeared in hacking space, even down to the pathways that wound between the maze of computers that gave the room the appearance of a spoked wheel. It was a floating monolith, gargantuan and imposing and containing the knowledge of tens of thousands of years of history, human or android or otherwise.

The dull electrical humming sent shivers up his spine. He could feel the crackling energy in his boots. It made his legs quake. The machines were children's toys compared to this immaculate structure. If 9S felt insignificant before, he sure as hell was feeling it now.

He squinted against the deep red light as he started the long walk around the ring to get to a connecting pathway. Thankfully there was no chance of running into resistance here; the server maintained itself, no need for repairs or really any physical access at all. He doubted the thing even had any removable parts. Just like himself, like his arm, like all of YoRHa's hyper advanced technology- it wasn't meant to come apart, and so it didn't without a hell of a fight.

Thankfully he had his hacking. He hadn't brought a cable to hook himself up to it anyway. He hugged his shoulders and shivered, finally starting to feel the deep freeze. YoRHa units were acclimated quite well to cold- living in the vacuum of space probably helped with that -but the sudden shift in temperature was giving him frighteningly human tingles on his porcelain skin.

He could hear wordless voices as he drew closer to the center, accompanied and muffled by a continuous rumbling thud. Like someone was going to town on a diving bell with a heavy hammer. It sounded as if he were on the inside of a storm, lightning and electricity crackling and droning all around him. His body was picking up interference from all directions, radio signals and wires inside his ears bouncing around like bullets. He could feel YoRHa's pulse running through him. He could hear whispers, sentences out of context, communications between operators and soldiers and transmissions to space. All at once, and then dulled by the swinging hammer of the master server's clockwork engine. He swallowed heavily. It was a lot to take in. An understatement perhaps.

Finally 9S ascended the stairs to the inner ring surrounding the main server. It was encapsulated in a cylindrical glass viewing chamber, which he'd noted was represented in hacking space by forked tubes leading to the outer circle of computers. He had very little idea where he was going, but it all seemed to lead to the same direction so it didn't bother him all that much.

9S walked up to the glass, shuddering from the impact of another thunderous roar of the server. It sounded like a living beast ready to strike out at him. Ready to break the glass and reach out with swarming otherworldly tentacles to smack him away, lest he uncover even more of YoRHa's forbidden knowledge hidden under locks and chains.

Gently, he let his hand raise until it was pressed against the glass. The server may've had locks, but he had the key.

The server complained as he began his hack, shooting up a dozen access violations as soon as he'd begun to interface with it. He batted them out of his way, ignored the flashing red warnings. Class six, class five, class four. Not even the Commander had this level of access. He scrambled through the server's rotted brains, listening to the dull hum of his user interface underneath all the racket around him. He searched and searched, scouring thousands of data packets. It was much harder in reality than it would've been in hacking space, but he couldn't risk his consciousness getting lost among the computers. He had to do this the hard way.

Then, after some minutes of trawling through a sea of files, he found it. The protocol that, though it was dozens of lines of code long, he knew as the machines' backdoor access. Their velvet curtain, their red carpet leading straight into the Bunker's self destruct protocol.

He set his jaw and squinted his eyes. He had his personal vendetta, but it could wait. His sense of justice had come back with a firey vengeance.

With a single decisive button press, the data was expunged. Just like that, there went their bargaining chip.

After that, finding the files he'd already accessed was easy. Pairing the data with that of his own ID let him basically look himself up in the system. There, in his own data logs, sat a copy of those damned YoRHa production notes that'd started this whole nightmare.

The holy orders.

The truth.

He copied the files to a spare bit of his own OS' memory, duplicated for ease of use.

Pasted them into a blank log.

Incremented his newly christened user ID down by 1.

And hit 'send log to user'.

Then he incremented downward again. And sent again. And again. And again, and again. Over and over he duplicated the message, faster and faster until he was practically mashing the send button. Hundreds of times he pushed it until his forearm hurt from the angry, vengeful jabbing motion and then some.

He sent the production notes to every single user ID, active or not, from his own down to the very first. Everybody. Every single YoRHa unit would receive the same files that had driven him to rebel in the first place. He didn't need to destroy the station to destroy YoRHa. Hiding the truth from their soldiers was all they had, and without it, they had nothing. Screw the machines. Screw YoRHa. Screw the war. Screw it all. If nothing truly mattered, then YoRHa's thousands of busy worker bees deserved the choice to quit their jobs and find their own destiny if they so desired.

He closed the hacking prompt and let out a few furious shuddering breaths.

Now everyone would feel as lost as he once felt, but without having to be stabbed through the stomach to get their eyes to open. It was better that way.

The warmer air in the hallway felt good on 9S' skin, cleansed him of the icy frost that'd gathered on his hair and the trim of his clothes. Already things were starting to go sideways. Random YoRHa units were bustling through the halls, crowding them, everyone rushing from somewhere to somewhere else. It was not quite a panic, more of a loud murmur. A low rumble preceding the storm. 9S pushed his way through the packed hallway, glad nobody was paying him any particular mind- he hadn't even been noticed coming out of the server room.

An alert came over the comms as he rounded the outer rings of the Bunker. Apparently a top-level security breach had caused a memetic virus to spread in the form of a data log appearing as an unread message. At least, that was their pitiful attempt to keep people from reading it. It was far too late, from the moment he'd sent it. No amount of damage control could keep the truth from getting out now.

The hangar was deserted, the broken hull still sitting halfway open and scattered in chunks around the floor. The skeleton of his broken flight unit still lay in the center of the room, and as he walked past it, he wondered if that was what he'd looked like to 2B after she gutted him. Just a broken sprawled-out husk of something that once mattered, left to rust and be forgotten.

9S climbed into a fresh flight unit and set a course for Earth.

He wouldn't allow anything he'd seen, anything he'd learned to be forgotten. The violence, the bloodshed, the lies and deceit.

31E's blonde hair.

11G's green eyes.

21O.

A2.

2B.

The truth.

He was never going to forget again. He owed it to them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. This story was a joy to write, and I look forward to exploring more concepts that are far outside the game's scope, but still within its universe. As always, leave a review and let me know what you thought of the story, and I'll see you in the next one.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of a couple extra chapters I have planned that take place at various points in time after the story. You can think of them as real epilogues, or if you want they can be "Non canon" what if tales. I leave it in your hands, but I did my best to make them realistically fit with the story wherever possible. I hope you enjoy, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of it.

**( ) ( ) ( )**

**EXTRA CHAPTER #1**

**( ) ( ) ( )**

 

Heavy boots clomped through a dense underbrush. Every step threw up blades of grass and dust, accompanied by another dull thud. Occasionally, a grunt of effort, annoyed-sounding and disgruntled. The metallic whine of a sword rang out, followed by a thick crunch and a sigh of relief.

9S stared past the thicket he'd just hewn to pieces with his sword, then wrenched it free of the tree it'd carved a wedge into. Finally, a clearing. He'd been worried that he would never see the sun again. Thankfully, it seemed he wasn't going to end up like that other body of his that he'd found. Not today, anyway- although the hour was technically still young.

He stepped into the clearing with curious eyes. More crumbled stone ruins, covered in thick vines and moss. He'd never been this far into the forest in his life... or maybe he had, just not in THIS life. He stood far outside of YoRHa's operational zone, not like it mattered anymore. It was just him and miles of uncharted territory.

Staring skyward at the tall pillars and the half-of-a-structure, 9S wondered if he could scale them to get a better vantage point. Uncharted territory for YoRHa really meant uncharted- he had no hyper-detailed three dimensional map to rely on anymore. Only vague topographical shapes. It made sense, really; the Bunker never moved and neither did Earth, so outside of a little cone directly below, they were practically blind.

He suppressed a snicker. 'Heh. Blind.'

Grunting with effort, he pulled himself up to the first story of the pile of rubble that was once a building. There was no telling what it used to be, it was surely thousands of years old by this point. No furnishing, no windows or wood or metal, just cold stone and ghosts of the past. Not literal ghosts of course, 9S was relatively certain they didn't exist.

Relatively.

Thankfully the half of the building with a stairwell was the part still standing, and with a little bit of parkour on his part he'd reached the top floor in no time. There he could peer out over the edge, above the treeline, and scout for... something. Anything, really. He hesitated to say he was lost, but his prospects certainly weren't looking up at the moment.

Miles of trees in all directions, spanning on nearly to the horizon. He followed each edge of the roof, wary of the sharp drop-off, slowly observing the sights in hopes of any sign of civilization. Hell, even another structure like the one he now stood atop. All he needed was three clear open points and then he could finely triangulate his position. Nothing to the East. Nothing to the West. He'd come from the South...

Due north, he spotted something that piqued his interest. In the distance, between a relatively thin cluster of trees, wispy black smoke rose between leaves and branches. Reaching toward the sky like an outstretched claw, the dark cloud waved and shuddered in the light breeze. 9S stood for a moment and watched it wobble, blinking at it in an attempt to remember its position, and then began his descent.

 

( ) ( ) ( )

 

Naturally, it was approximately an hour later before he'd wormed his way through the trees and come upon his destination. When he was with YoRHa, he'd always relied on being able to search for any information he could possibly desire. He was always told he was one of their best, a top scanner. Better than anyone in his production run. And yet, without their insanely deep knowledge of the entire universe, he was like a lost child. Thankfully he probably wasn't the only YoRHa unit currently feeling that way.

There was a rustle of leaves as he approached the source of the smoke. Probably just the breeze, but it still made the micro-fibers on the back of his neck prickle at the thought of it being something else. He honestly had no idea what he was going to find in this little hovel between cliffs- he knew what he sought, but had basically lost hope of finding it long ago. At another rustle, this one definitely harsher, he drew his sword.

It was a panic instinct, really. This post-YoRHa world had so far been like the wild damn west, whatever that was. Some human civilization a very, very long time ago. He only knew a little about it, but a key factor in early human history was how lawless it all was. The induction of a new society, in a new era, on a new planet. The similarities weren't lost on him.

His left hand gripped the handle tight as he rolled his shoulder. He hadn't been attacked yet, not since leaving the Bunker, but it had to be coming. The past week or so had been hectic, but he'd been trying to stay out of it all. He did his bidding and surely more than one unit wanted his head for it. Better to stay hidden for the time being, until enough time had passed that nobody knew it was he who'd ushered in this so-called wild west 2.0.

Wild west version 2? Wild west v2? Wild West: The Revenge. Wild w-

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden arm stretching out of a nearby bush. 9S cried out as the wayward hand gripped his blade and gave it a yank, pulling it from his hand and him through the shrub along with it. He squeezed his eyes shut as he tumbled through twigs and greenery, rollling a few times once he'd broken free of the bush and then coming to a particularly embarrassing stop.

Immediately he was on his feet, pushing up into a combat pose and ready to fight with his fists should the need arise. His sword had been stolen and now it was time to fight for his life. He grimaced, staring hard at his opponent, pushing his heels into the dirt and ready to spring forward like a cat should they use his own weapon against him.

Instead, the hilt was offered back to him, his new foe's hand still gripping it by the blade.

"What the hell?" A2 grunted, impatiently waiting for him to take it.

9S dropped his fighting stance as his eyebrows rose. It was her. It really, really was. Her flowing white hair was draped over her shoulders like a curtain, perfectly framing her annoyed expression. She had one hand at her side in a fist, the other still curled around his sword. He stood awkwardly rigid, unsure of what to say.

"Uh..." He began. Not a strong start.

"Are you gonna take the thing or not?" She offered it to him again, staring down at it to direct his attention toward it. 9S reached up and grabbed it with his left hand, sheathing it behind him backwards as usual. It vanished in a puff of yellow and white cubes, leaving him scratching the back of his neck with one gloved hand.

"Uh..." He said again. "Hi, A2."

Immediately she scoffed. "What are you doing here? Thought I told you to get lost." Right to the point as usual.

9S recalled their last meeting very clearly, and how she'd yanked out his heart and stepped on it with those pointy heels. He was still pretty sore about it, but he didn't blame her for it anymore. After all, now he knew exactly how she felt every single day. He knew what it was like to live her life, and it made him feel bad for filing her under the 'hate' category.

For the moment, he ignored her question. There was certainly enough time to talk about that little situation later. He watched as she turned from him and went back to her meager campfire without awaiting a response. She sank to the ground opposite him, crossing her legs and scooting a bit closer. He watched her skin, her eyes light up beyond the fire now separating them.

She didn't seem to mind his presence or that he hadn't answered, so he instead walked around the fire to stand a slightly more comfortable distance away. Only then did he notice what she was actually doing.

Any illusion of beauty on her features was shattered as she raised the makeshift kebab to her mouth and took a particularly angry bite of the roasted whatever she'd been grilling on the fire. It seemed to be a squirrel of some kind, but 9S had never seen a roasted squirrel before that he could recall. Without the fur it looked a bit more like a small alien.

A2 looked like a hungry bear, chomping open-mouthed on the creature's exposed meaty parts. How she had any kind of appetite at all was beyond him, but the ability to stomach eating a woodland creature made him all the more confused.

"You know we're... not supposed to eat, right?" He said, staring at her wannabe spear.

She grunted. "Maybe you're not," she said with her mouth full of chewed-up squirrel. "I can eat just fine."

He blinked at her, not really comprehending what she'd just said. "What... happens to the food matter?"

She furrowed her brow. "What do you think happens?"

9S instinctively made a disgruntled face. "Oh."

"And anyway, you didn't answer me." A2 said, returning her attention to the fire and her meal. "Not really grasping the 'you're gonna get us both killed' thing or what?"

He was surprised she remembered what she'd said. He certainly did too. 9S was unsure of how to begin. There was so much to tell her, so much that'd happened. He'd fulfilled his promise. Maybe not in the way he'd originally intended, but even still, YoRHa was no longer an issue. How could he even start to explain that to her, though?

He sighed. "Y'know how you said that I should find you if YoRHa ever gives up looking for me?"

She squinted at him. "Uh, yeah?"

He nodded. "Well... they did. Sort of."

"The hell does that mean?" A2 grumbled, incredulous.

"I... kinda sorta dismantled their whole operation from the inside and threw the entire organization into chaos while also removing the only bargaining chip they had so that now everybody knows the truth about YoRHa and has no reason to trust them anymore which means that there's no more chain of command to send people after rogue androids like you and me."

A2's frown and squint both deepened. "What?"

"What, what?"

"Say all that crap again, but slower." She grunted.

And so, 9S took a seat next to her by the fire and began his story from the moment she left his company. He couldn't help but notice a satisfied smirk on her face when he told her of how he brutalized 2B. He still had no idea what happened to her- although he hadn't done much searching. He sort of hoped she was still alive given that his whole plan to destroy YoRHa hadn't actually worked out. But the chances certainly were unfairly slim.

He told her of the fights he'd been in, his struggle to survive, his final act of revenge against YoRHa, and how without her guidance he'd never even have made it to the Bunker alive in the first place.

When he finished, he noticed she hadn't spoken a word the entire time. To be fair, it was a lot to take in, but it seemed a bit unnatural for her to remain in complete silence. She was still munching on the remains of her meal as she put on a contemplative face.

Then she snorted. "Yeah, right."

9S sputtered. "Wh-What! But it's all true! I did!"

"You seriously want me to believe you made it back to their crummy little space station? What do you take me for, an idiot?"

With a frustrated frown, 9S gently raised his right arm to her eye level. Immediately her darkly amused expression turned to one of what could possibly be described as stupefaction.

"Huh." She said, eyeing his still basically perfect, pristine scanner model arm. "Shit."

"See? I'm not lying." He too was staring at his arm, still occasionally having a hard time believing it himself of late.

Now A2 wore a squinted face of scrutiny. "And you... didn't destroy the Bunker?"

He shook his head, lowering his arm into his lap. "I was going to, really I was... but..."

"You wussed out." She completed his sentence for him.

He frowned. "That's... not what I was gonna say, but also not totally incorrect."

"Why? You seemed pretty sure last time we talked about it." A2 folded her arms, doing her best to look acusative instead of inquisitive.

9S heaved a deep sigh. "It's complicated. I had some time to think it over when I got there and all that killing just didn't seem right anymore."

She nodded, pretending to mull that over for a moment. "Alright," she continued, "then why not?"

"I just had a change of heart, that's all. Is that really so hard to believe?"

"Yes," she replied immediately. "Something made you change your mind or else there'd still be a big-ass pile of scrap floating up there with you on it."

9S threw up his hands. "Look, I didn't really come here to be cross-examined, okay?"

A2 scoffed. "Then why DID you come here?"

That caught him off guard. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well... Y'know, for you."

She pursed her lips, squinting at him once more. As if it were just a lie. As if she'd never heard something so ridiculous. As if the concept of someone coming to see her because they felt like it was completely foreign to her.

"What?" She said flatly.

9S just shrugged. "You told me to."

A2 rolled her head along with her eyes. "I know I did, but I didn't think you'd actually do it!"

Now it was his turn to be incredulous. "Why not? You saved me."

"Did the whole 'I don't run with other people' thing mean nothing to you??"

"You seemed fine with it at the time." 9S was genuinely confused now. It looked to him as if she was split in two on the inside, where half of her wanted to see him again and the other wished he'd died on the Bunker.

"Okay, let me clear the air for you then." She gestured in his direction. "Whether you got rid of YoRHa or not, I still don't want to pal around with you."

9S shook his head. "Oh, I didn't expect you to do that-"

"Then why... did you... come here!?" She leaned in his direction with emphasis on each word.

"I dunno, I thought we could be friends!" He replied defensively. "I just figured we could talk because there's nothing to be afraid of anymore, y'know?"

A2 scoffed at that. "Nothing to be afraid of, my ass. You don't know the half of what there is to fear out there, kid."

He asked the obvious question. "What do you mean?"

She gave him a disgruntled look. "I dunno if you remember, but there's still an army of machines running around trying to end android-kind. YoRHa sucks shit, but they were the only defense against them."

"That's not true," 9S interjected, "the machines were against YoRHa, not androids in general."

"Oh, well that explains why they suddenly stopped eating people and all went away, never to return."

He furrowed his brow. "Eating people?"

"Jeez, I dunno where you've been but you must've had your head in the damn sand or something." A2 gestured to the open air. "Yes, eating people, stealing their black boxes. They're all heading to the desert for some reason and it's probably to build some ugly android machine horror-show."

"That sounds bad." 9S murmured.

"Yeah, no shit."

He was rubbing his chin now. "Well... Maybe it's not the end for YoRHa. Maybe having their secrets out in the open will change the way they do things. There surely aren't enough flight units for EVERY android to leave the Bunker."

"I thought your whole plan was to get rid of them."

"It was, at first! But then..." He exhaled, ran a hand through his hair. "But then I thought about how many of them have no idea what's going on up there behind the scenes. You've gotta understand that, right?"

"Sure, but do you really think anyone with enough sense to care is gonna voluntarily stick around?"

9S' shoulders slumped. "No, but maybe whoever's left to fight will be more organized. That's what I'm hoping, anyway."

"You'd better hope." She grunted. "One of us may as well."

They were quiet for the time being after that. This was not at all going as 9S had hoped, although she had posed an interesting question. Why HAD he returned to her? Until very recently he was sure he wasn't even going to leave the Bunker, and now that he had, he was a bit confused. A2 obviously still desired companionship, but continued to enjoy constantly reminding him of how much that wasn't the case.

In truth, he didn't know what she wanted. Nor did he know what he wanted himself, really. There was nothing more for him to do now besides show up at her doorstep. The lack of constant adrenaline and stress had left him feeling a bit lost. She was right that the long war was far from over, but the short-term problem had been solved. And if he was now a wanderer, why not wander back to A2's side?

But maybe that was what bothered her. The knowledge that everybody, every YoRHa android, was now like her... it was surely a lot to take in. Perhaps she just needed time to comprehend it. She probably would continue to complain if he stuck around, but the desire to stumble along behind someone again had left him feeling a bit nostalgic.

And it wasn't like she was actually going to tell him to buzz off... in less kind words, of course. He disliked preying on her weaknesses in that way, but she simply didn't have it in her. As much as she didn't want to admit it, he could tell she was enjoying having someone to talk to just by her sarcasm. If she were genuinely upset by his presence, there would probably have been more curse words.

"God damn shit." A2 grumbled from his right. Speak of the devil.

"What's that?" 9S asked, coming out of his haze.

A2 had a not entirely small cracked bit of hard rubber flesh between her pointer finger and thumb. She sneered at it as she gave it a squeeze, watching it squish a little.

"Ugh." She said, tossing it into the grass and returning to scratching at the spot on her upper leg where it'd come from. He leaned a little closer to see what she was doing, and his eyebrows rose as she dug in her fingernails to yank off another torn bit of skin.

"Hey, uh..." He cleared his throat. "You shouldn't do that."

"No shit." She said, not even looking at him as she angled her leg to get a better look at the seam.

"Why... are you doing that?" He asked, attempting to steer the conversation towards 'don't remove your skin from your bones'.

She cocked her head in his direction. "Have you ever been gored by a boar before? It tends to leave your skin a bit shredded."

9S blinked at her. "You were... gored ...by a boar? When?"

She nodded at her makeshift kebab. "We were hunting the same prey." Without another word she returned to what 9S could now see was a deep dent in her external armor. It hadn't been pierced, but it certainly looked like it hurt.

9S cleared his throat again. "Well, uh, you probably shouldn't take off your skin. I imagine it's kinda hard to find first-generation YoRHa parts to replace it with these days."

Her response was deadpan as ever. "It's my skin, I'll get rid of it if I want, thanks."

When she went back to it, however, trying to tug at a small island of flesh amidst an ocean of black rubber, he reached out and caught her wrist with his hand. 9S was unsure why he'd done it- it was mostly out of reflex. Perhaps a protective instinct, or maybe just a desire to avoid having to see an android deglove themselves.

He expected a backhand or a shove to be coming his way, but instead she was just staring at his hand. They both were. A2's fingers were splayed in an open claw- not gripped too tight, but enough that she couldn't easily tug herself free of his grasp. Her bangs fell over her eyes as she leaned a little bit inward, her face suddenly becoming very sullen. Immediately 9S was afraid he had made a grievous mistake.

"You can let go of my hand any time, y'know." She murmured relatively softly.

He smiled a little despite the fear collecting in his throat. "Depends on if you're going to go right back to what you were doing."

"I planned on it." She said, eyes flicking in his direction. But then they widened a little for a reason he could not comprehend, and quickly returned to his clenched fist.

He couldn't think of anything to say to that.

When he didn't move to let her go, A2 wrenched her arm out of his grasp quickly and sharply before letting it settle across her thigh. "Where's your stupid blindfold, anyway?" She mumbled in her most grumpy voice.

"My what?" 9S instinctively touched a hand to the side of his head. "Oh! Oh, yeah, that." It was only the ten thousandth time he'd forgotten that he hadn't bothered putting his visor back on before leaving his room on the Bunker. Strangely, he felt no different without it. It was as if it never mattered more than what it symbolized. Funny how that worked.

He couldn't help but notice that A2 hadn't gone back to picking at her skin. She was just staring into the fire, which had dwindled significantly now, casting a warm red over them both to contrast with the dark green shade of the forest. 9S looked up at the thin gathering of branches above them, casting sunlight through only in scattered beams. It was so strangely peaceful. The forest hadn't changed at all since the last time he had visited, but it still felt so different.

"Sooooo," 9S began, not sure of what else to say at this point, "are you going to tell me about yourself?"

Immediately she was back at full capacity. "Christ, I KNEW you were gonna bring that up. I KNEW it. Ugh!"

But it had been an honest question. "Is that a 'no' then?"

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean, it's a 'no'! I mean... I'm not gonna tell you shit."

"Uh... Okay."

Only a few seconds passed before A2 threw up her hands. "Fine! I'll tell you my shitty life story. I did say I'd tell you and all..."

9S nodded silently.

"God damn stupid idiot..." She grumbled, and 9S assumed that this time she meant herself.

She didn't get far into her story of the first machine war and Pearl Harbor before 9S realized he'd already heard it- or, rather, read it. Her retelling of the events was as cold and clinical as the data logs about the subject he'd once brushed up on. At first she described the setting to him: Ohau Island, Mt. Ka'ala, and of course Pearl Harbor. It was as if she were reading from a dictionary or maybe a travel guide. Sure, what a scenic place, come and bring your family- except for the machines equipped with rockets and anti-air missiles. Her teeth grit a little as she described the mission itself.

He soon regretted asking as he watched her bangs fall further over her face. Malice lined her features as she described the hasty touchdown that resulted in the death of most of her squad. He sat in silence as she grew more frustrated, obviously trying to avoid describing the survivors of the descent. He knew there were at least four of them, though A2 was the only one that'd been named in the documents. As she recounted the group's pitiful attempt to storm the not-so-metaphorical gates, he noticed just how different from 2B she really was. He could see it in her grit teeth. Her clenched fists, and wrinkled nose. 2B could never have shown such raw emotion. A2 was seething with pain and it was evident on her every feature.

He was brought out of the yarn she was spinning when she fell silent for a moment, now staring at her knees. She was seemingly involuntarily hugging her legs to her body, still staring into the fire with a nihilistic frown weighing down her face.

"Is... that all?" He spurned her to go on. She'd kind of stopped in the middle so he assumed not, but her sudden silence was making him feel a bit awkward.

"No." She grunted. "This next part fucking sucks."

"Oh. Y-You don't have to tell me if it's too hard to think about."

She rolled her eyes. "Christ, you're so pathetic. You let me get 3/4ths of the way through these stupid memories and NOW you want me to stop?"

"I... I guess not." He mumbled. Obviously she knew she was making him feel bad, but he had a feeling he was making her feel worse by having to recall all this in the first place.

"Did your stupid data logs say I had a grandmother?" She turned her head in his direction, eyes half-lidded and expression disgruntled.

What a strange question. "Uh... no?"

She turned away from him once more. "Yeah, well my memories say I had one. I don't really care about them, but someone else sure as hell did."

9S was confused. "Who? Someone on your squad?"

A2 scoffed with disdain. "Of course someone on my squad. Probably the best of all of us."

"Who was it? How many of you were there?" 9S' voice was unsteady. He was obviously straying into dangerous territory now.

"Does it really matter?" She snapped. "I'm not gonna tell you their goddamn life stories."

But then she squeezed her eyes shut and laid her forehead on her knees. She curled up a bit tighter then.

"Number F-" She grit her teeth. "It was Number Four."

9S' face lit up at that. "I know a soldier with personality number four, he's a scanner like me."

She turned to face him once more, head still resting on her knees. "A what..? Oh. Yeah. Probably better off that way, she sucked as a combat unit." But as she said the harsh words, the smallest of smiles tinged her lips. Maybe a fleeting memory she didn't feel like sharing.

"The only reason I'm still here right now," she continued, "is because of Number Four. Without her, I wouldn't have made it out of that hellhole."

"And Anemone?"

"She has her own shit to deal with." A2 grunted. "Listen, all you need to know is that everyone I cared about has been dead for a long time and it was everyone's fault but ours."

"You say that like it doesn't bother you any."

She gave him a frustrated leer. "What are you, a damn therapist?"

9S shrugged. "I'm just saying... do you really not care about all this?"

"Of course I care!" She abruptly shouted, her pent up friction finally exploding out of her. "It's the only thing I have left to care about, you idiot! Outside of this stupid shit I've got nothing!"

"I didn't mean to-"

"You didn't mean to what?! You didn't mean to upset me? You didn't mean to make me relive it all over again?" She clenched her fists somehow even tighter. "All this horrible shit that's happened to you and you STILL don't get it! There is nothing but misery in this stupid world and no amount of clasping hands and praying it goes away is gonna do anything!"

She flinched hard as his hand gingerly came to a rest on her shoulder. It was of course trembling, but the gesture was what got her attention.

"I do get it." He said, concern lining his features. A2 met his gaze for a mere second and then looked away again, still fuming. Why did his stupid eyes have to be the same color as hers?

"Then just fuck off like everyone else." A2 muttered, pulling her legs in until she sat in a near fetal position. "None of it matters anymore now that YoRHa is gone. Nothing."

He ignored her. "I know what it's like to feel like your memories are meaningless." And boy, wasn't that the truth. He likely knew it better than she did at this point.

She chuckled dryly. "Yeah, I'll bet. Funny thing is, they ARE meaningless. We're the idiots who give them meaning."

"Is there really anything wrong with that?" 9S asked, gently rubbing his thumb back and forth. Her posture hadn't relaxed any, but she didn't seem as if she were about to grab his arm and suplex him any time soon.

She put a hand over her upper stomach, where the nuclear fusion reactor that powered her entire being sat chugging away. "No. Without that I'd have died a long time ago."

"I didn't mean to upset you." 9S said in his calmest voice. "Honest."

"How kind of you." She replied, shaking her head slightly. He couldn't read her expression through the tangles of snow-white hair, but he could tell she was still grimacing.

"Can I stick around?" He asked in earnest. He'd gotten what he technically came for- the promise of her life story. He wanted to know who A2 really was, and now he was fully aware and had seen the brunt of it. If she wanted him to leave now, he would. Of course, he wouldn't be happy about it, but the choice was no longer in his hands as far as he minded.

A2 raised her head, chin once again taking its spot on her knees. The fire was simply embers now, charred sticks burning dark red among a circle of ashes.

"Well... Now you know too much, so if you fuck off, I'll have to kill you." She grumbled.

He exhaled through his nose. "Yeah. Funny."

"Wasn't a joke."

He smiled softly. "Believe me, I'm sure it wasn't."

She picked up her stick and started to poke at the fire pit aimlesly, watching the embers rise and twist in the light breeze. "I bet humans were pretty stupid anyway."

9S gingerly dropped his hand from her shoulder and scooted a few paces closer on his rear. He joined in watching her snub out the last little bits of flame.

He shrugged, leaning his head toward her idly. "They didn't have a master server containing every bit of knowledge of every aspect of the universe."

She raised her eyebrows, expression bored and plain. "Neither does YoRHa anymore."

9S squinted as an ember passed near his face. "Well, it's still up there, but I doubt the network is going to be connected for much longer."

"End of an era."

"Yup."

9S turned his head toward the sky again before continuing. "I wonder what's gonna happen now. I guess YoRHa does still exist, but what good are they without their control, y'know?"

"They're just soldiers like everyone else now." She was idly doodling in the ashes with her stick now, tracing lines to nowhere and doing meaningless circles.

"It is nice that everyone's on even ground. It's relieving, in a way."

Now it was A2's turn to say "Yup."

She looked up from her doodling to see that 9S was staring awkwardly at her. Obviously he hadn't gotten a good enough look and was trying to ogle while she was distracted by her art. Shameful of him, really.

A2 wanted to frown in comparison to the pleasant smirk he wore, or maybe hit him with the stick, but she did neither. Instead she met his gaze with a look she attempted to keep totally neutral in every way.

"Maybe now you can teach me to be right handed again." He said with that dopey idiot grin still on his face.

And boy, he must have been feeling brave to the point of that idiocy at that moment, as he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder again, this time with much more self-assurance. A2 suddenly sensed her cheeks getting warm- a sensation she hadn't felt in how long, she couldn't remember.

With her free hand, the one not gently twirling her paintbrush, she slowly and cautiously reached up and placed her palm atop his knuckles. They both turned their attention back to the dwindling fire then, sat in silence as they watched the last little embers of the past finally simmer and die.

For the first time in a very, very long time, A2 was fighting the urge to smile.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one will be interesting. I thought about leaving it up in the air, even after I'd written it I was considering not posting it, but I went through the effort so I may as well show you. One or two more extra chapters are coming and then Play Dead will be all wrapped up in a neat little bow, but for the time being... here comes one loose end tied off. Enjoy, and please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of it.

**( ) ( ) ( )**

**EXTRA CHAPTER #2**

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Howling wind.

The desert cried out in agony as layers of its bulbous flesh peeled away. A deep rumble drove angry waves of sand to radiate from high dunes, cascading into valleys and the opening maws of ravines. The sands were shifting, some long-buried earthen plates grinding against one another to make hideous ancient music. The sound carried up and up on the breeze until it rose above the storm, and all that was left was a far-away mechanical grinding. Repetitive and stark, over and over.

Clawed digits gripped the sword's handle tight. The blade was held out to the side, splayed like a snow angel's arm in the sand. It sat half-buried, torn gloved palm barely visible among the brown and orange haze. Somewhere high above, the rumble of thunder shook its tightly gripping fingers.

The white steel shone bright as lightning flashed, like a beacon. As if to say, "I'm still right here." Rain in the desert had always been a rarity, but the oases scattered around couldn't have been formed by groundwater alone. There would be no sustenance for the plants. No algae lining the crust at the bottom. No murky iron and salt tinging the surface a dull green. She could still taste iron, even now. Or maybe copper.

A layer of grime had long since coated 2B's forehead. Resting it on the sand as she made her journey had kept her awake. The heat of the ground had boiled her mind into a pile of slush, given her furious determination. Or maybe she'd always had it and it was just buried deep inside.

She had clawed and struggled and screamed until her voice was hoarse and then some. Pain had given way to anguish and then exhaustion, but she refused to give up. She refused to die. Not here. Not again. She'd had enough of dying a long time ago. Now all that remained of her pain was an angry flame, burning like the wavy mirage casting from the desert sands before her.

The hand gripping the sword seemed to curl tighter as it shivered in the wind. 2B grit her teeth as it picked up once again, spewing rocks and gravel through the air. She'd made it to the corpse some time ago. Its communicator was working just fine despite rigor mortis already having set in- the fluid in its veins hardening into a crusty sludge and the rubber muscles becoming rigid and unmovable. It was as if 9S had been a posing mannequin she'd carried here under her arm.

Of course he was. It was more than a metaphor. New 9S bodies were a simple blank slate. Completely unmarred and ready to be hoisted into battle. This one was just a child. But then, they all were, really.

And now she'd had to crawl all the way back across their sorry makeshift battlefield, because there was no way to get the communicator out of the body's skull. She cursed her lack of strength- hoping that she could've pried it open despite being missing three limbs. From her prone position, there was no way to get leverage. For a moment she'd considered brute force, beating on its porcelain face until it caved and then punching a hole straight through... but the thought of doing such a horrible thing to him, even in death, made bile rise in her throat.

2B shook the thought away before it made her nauseous again, shaking her matted bangs out of her face. She reached out for the hand gripping the sword and managed to get ahold of it by the elbow, grunting with effort as she pulled it out of the sand. Like grains in an hourglass, streams of beige mist cascaded from the dusty fallen limb, along with some leftover drops of oil and clear viscous fluid. Twisting her body until she was on her side, she pulled the arm closer and attempted to free the sword from its iron grip.

No such luck.

With a single solid punch that hurt a muscle in her shoulder, she shattered her own knuckles to loosen its deathly grasp. The sword came free with an unsettling crunch, like the blood caked on the handle had been there for years and was being unstuck from time itself. 2B shakily wrung her wrist, the one still attached to her body, and leaned outward to reclaim what was hers.

The crawl back over to 9S' sorry corpse would be long and arduous, though dragging herself along with the sword would make it a far less herculean task. It'd taken her what must have been hours to get this far. A scowl came over her face as another wave of dull pain throbbed in her pelvis. The cuts had been clean, all three of them. 9S had dismembered her as if he's been doing it his whole life. Like he'd been trained in the art of perfect angular combat. Like a professional.

Like an executioner.

She'd dragged herself about three paces before her worst fear was realized. 2B was not outwardly afraid of much in the cruel world she occupied. She'd learned to ignore fear, it was necessary to keeping her mask from cracking. Being the stalwart hero was her disguise, it was the cloak she wore to keep her true self safe.

In truth, she was scared most of the time- for 9S' safety, for the future of YoRHa, for her mission -but not for survival. So far, death was meaningless, so there was no reason to be. And it wasn't unique to her either; YoRHa units were only afraid of one thing, and that was losing their memories. But now that 9S had the insane plan he'd relayed to her before leaving her to die... they went hand in hand.

But what could a realistic fear be without an origin? From the searing of her wounds by his blade, she was sure she wasn't going to bleed out. No, this was a real problem, one that truly gave her cause for alarm. Her pulse quickened and throat grew tight as she realized then that said fear was stumbling right toward her.

A single machine.

Just one.

One single lowly rusted stubby machine. And it had locked on to her position a very long time ago, probably walked half the desert to come and find her. To end her, before she could end it. Obviously there was no chance of that happening, but machines were mindless and moronic creatures. Simple idiots that followed orders based on code and execution. Whatever governed its computerized brain told it there was an android that needed killing, and so it obeyed without question.

Funny, it reminded her of someone she knew.

She squinted into the haze as she watched it approach, unsure of what to do or what even could be done. There was something horribly wrong with it. It shambled along like it was half-broken, one eye flickering and head tilted mostly skyward. One leg dragged behind it like an anchor, leaving a deep groove in the sand as it went on its way. It was somehow even more rusted than machines usually were, rusted past the point of the usual brown and into a radiant green and violent red. It stuck out among the desert whirlwind like a sore thumb, and it was coming right for her.

But what unnerved her most was its face. The usually perfectly smooth dome looked as if a bite had been taken out of it, leaving a hideous jagged mess of tangled metal and tetanus-infested steel. The skull-like jaws underneath quivered as wispy smoke traveled out of the sides of its new mouth. It snapped open and shut randomly like a beartrap, clanking and clicking as if trying to find her by echolocation.

It was barely three feet tall, and it was the most terrifying thing 2B had ever seen.

Immediately she flipped over onto her back, letting the sword splay out. There was no way she could actually fight it, even though it looked as if it'd recently returned from the grave. As much as it pained her, her only idea was to feign death and hope it passed her by. Of course, that had exactly zero chance of working if it was able to detect the quickening distressed rattle of her black box... but she was hoping with whatever tiny scraps of hope were left that it wasn't just decayed in appearance alone.

Though it wouldn't be able to tell through the blindfold anyway, she squeezed her eyes closed tight. Immediately her other senses took over the gruntwork and she smelled the decay of her own body, could taste the dried blood lining the bottom of her mouth, could hear its shuffling footsteps as it ambled closer and closer.

The mechanical creaking of its limbs, oiled approximately never ago, drew just the slightest bit louder as it cut through the storm toward her. It had her in its sights, whatever this monstrosity was. She could've sworn it was snarling as if it actually were undead, trying to vocalize, trying make angry wordless sounds. But then again, perhaps her mind was simply playing tricks on her. That prospect frightened her almost more than the machine did.

When she dared to crack one eye open, a shaking gasp parted her lips. Its snapping claptrap mouth was hovering right above her, the machine having just come to a stop. It was slowly, so painfully slowly, leaning over her limp body. Her bloodshot eyes went wide as it began to lower itself toward her midsection, that awful gnarled mouth creaking open wide and jawless. Too wide. It twitched once as sparks and smoke came out of its neck. Her lower lip trembled. It was going to eat her.

She screamed, a terrified cry that she'd never heard herself make before, turning the sword over in her hand in an instant. She sprang to life as quickly as she could in her pained state, hiking up her shoulder and letting the momentum carry her into a seated position. She pierced the side of the creature's head with her sword and continued the stab a full semicircle, pinning it to the sand on its side. Trembling fingers pushed and pushed as she stumbled over the remains of her hips and onto her stomach, trying to almost will the blade deeper into the monster's metal domed flesh.

It sent sparks and plumes of black smoke flying in all directions as she leaned her body's full weight into it, ignoring the hard kicks from its wind-up-toy foot as she pressed her shoulder hard. There was a solid groan as its metal head dented and collapsed, and then a bright red and yellow flash as she crushed its head to rubble under her weight.

The lower jaw snapped shut with a loud clang, and then it lay still- and so did 2B, who was now face down in the dirt and wracked with frightened sobs.

She didn't move for what felt like ages. The strength had been completely drained out of her. This machine, this... thing, was like a living nightmare. She had almost just sat back and let it kill her. Whether she felt like she deserved death was currently irrelevant- she could imagine no worse way to go than being devoured by such a horrible creature. And it was so short, too. So pathetic and weak, and it was almost her demise.

But then again, 9S had some part in it too. She looked at her dismembered arm, which had once again become partially buried in wavy sand. Did she blame him for what he'd done? Could she?

She sniffled, her pink nose achingly dry and cracked. Now was not the time to think about that. Survival was most important, and now that she had her sword back, she could continue her struggle. She could continue to improve her chances, so that she could hopefully live to think for as long and hard as she damn well pleased.

For now, all there was to consider was how to survive. 9S' corpse was starting to seem farther away with every passing minute- despite the clean cuts, she was going to bleed out eventually. Her body would dry up and become rigid like a sponge without water, and then she'd simply overheat and die. Eventually it wouldn't even hurt. Physically at least.

2B swallowed dryly. She was aching with exhaustion from her fight with the machine, vision tinted a dark red around the edges as she wheezed. She wasn't sure she could even make it to the corpse in this state, and if she tried to rest, well... she couldn't be sure she would even wake up.

But she'd made it to her arm. It was useless now that she'd broken it in order to get her sword loose, but that ironically was what had saved her. An arm for a life was not a bad trade. She looked at it, squinting hard and deep in thought. The broken fingers were twisted and bent, curled inward like a dying spider. Tattered remnants of her glove and sleeve flapped in the wind like white flags. She followed their waving direction as if they were trying to guide her.

Squinting against the darkness, she spotted what their signal was pointing her toward. Blinking the first little drops of quiet rain out of her eyes, there they were. Barely even visible under the layer of sand they'd been buried in... were her legs.

Heaving her shoulder as if she were swimming through the sand, 2B dug her sword in deep and used it as a weight to pull herself forward. When she reached it and her body curled around its hilt, she dug it out and moved forward again. And again. And again. Her limp and useless torso dragged behind her, scrapes and scratches tingling as raindrops pattered on them.

The dangling wires and metal bones lining her single left hip and lone right thigh were still sparking even now, brought alight once again by the current. But they were severed cleanly. They could be reattached. She thought of 9S' metal arm, and how effective it'd been. How he'd given himself over to the one thing they both hated beyond passionately, and it'd made him stronger in the end.

She squeezed her eyes closed again as the rain picked up into a drizzle, beginning to part her hair into dripping split ends. Lightning flashed, filling her dazzled eyelids with a dull gray. Gray was a good way to describe how she felt at the moment. It described a lot of things.

Gray gray gray. Murky gray.

That was all that was left.

 

( ) ( ) ( )

 

Heels on desert sand made soft, dull thudding as they dug in deep. A plodding pace accompanied by harsh panting. Unnecessary panting, but it felt good. The air was dry, and her cracked lips parted as she let out another exhale. Her chest burned, insides aching. It'd been days since she'd last slept, maybe longer. The ungodly heat, the air drier than space, the crevice-filling dirt and dust, it was all making her body do backflips to keep itself in working condition.

Her hip and thigh burned, angry red seams still searing hot to the touch. The deep rings marked her like a signboard: Look at me, look at what I've done. Look at who I am. Look at how I struggled. She cleared the dune and came to a standstill at the top, squinting against the hot sun to observe her surroundings.

She adjusted her sword, slung across her hip for easy access, as they came into view.

The head bites the tail.

The group hadn't noticed her yet. Digging her heels in and leaning back, she slid down the dune as quietly as possible, the ratty shawl thrown over her back and shoulder rustling in the cool wind. A simple burlap brown, made of thin wiry fabric and well worn with age. Lifted off of a dead body, naturally, not like they needed it anymore.

When she reached the bottom, she lamented that the breeze had come to an end. For a moment she considered giving sneaking a try, the element of surprise and all... but she'd never excelled at stealth anyway. A full-frontal assault was more dangerous, but was much more her style. Hell, maybe she'd be able to whittle them down from three to two before they'd gotten over their bewilderment. Not a large group, but enough to give her trouble, especially in her weary state.

Arms to her sides underneath the shawl, face an unreadable glower, she crept slowly forward.

The one at the back of their little huddle noticed her first. Sun shining off of her leather combat armor, she nodded toward the cloaked android. The other two, who may as well have been her twins, turned slowly.

"Who the hell is that?" The one at the back asked, hand instinctively reaching for her sword.

The one at her left flank had already drawn her own with an electric slice. "Dunno, but I'm not taking any chances."

"Me either." The unit at her right joined her, taking up a slow and cautious fighting stance.

Coming to a stop a few paces away, the ratty android turned to the side and stared down her left shoulder at them, hand slowly creeping across her body under the shawl.

"You, there." She said in her most calm tone, ignoring the sound of the desert-air-cracked voice that came out of her. "Do you know who I am?"

They exchanged glances, then returned their blank, masked stares to her.

"No. Never seen you before." The one at the back said. "SHOULD we know who you are?"

The woman nodded slowly, and yet did not answer. This time she mustered up her most commanding bark. "Units 65, 35, and 59B. Thirty-five hours ago, a rogue signal was detected that identified you as combatants in a one-sided battle. You stand accused of murdering innocent androids in cold blood. Make your case, or I'll kill you."

One of them- she couldn't tell which -scoffed. "We did no such thing."

"You look like you're about to fall apart over there." The second threw her thumb over her shoulder before folding her arms. "Why don't you just jog on before we have to defend ourselves, get me?"

The dusty woman set her jaw. "So you're not going to make a case, then?"

"Why should we?" The third held her sword aloft. "Once we take care of you there'll be no more witnesses."

"I'll take that as an admission." The android in the cloak said solemnly. "My name is YoRHa unit 2E, and you've all committed some very serious crimes against our code of honor."

"Tch." The first unit finally drew her sword, pointing it straight at this '2E'. Beneath her mask, her eyes were angry slits. "YoRHa doesn't exist anymore! Their bullshit code is meaningless. We have to do whatever it takes to survive out here!"

"And slaughtering helpless androids is what it takes?" 2E's voice was harsh and sharp. "I don't think so."

"This is war." The android at the back said angrily, taking a step forward. "Anything that keeps you alive is what's necessary. I dunno how you've survived this long and not realized that yet. Ladies, let's teach this bitch some real manners."

2E ground her teeth. Ironic. Calling her a bitch and complaining about manners in the same sentence. Some people really did have no sense of honor these days.

"Alright, then." 2E said. "But you brought this on yourselves."

In one fluid motion she grabbed her sword tight, feeling the vibrating electric current radiate up her arm as the handle met her palm. Drawing it from her hip in a shower of yellow and white sparks, the cloak fluttered behind her back as hot air shoved it out of the way.

"What the hell? Are you serious?" One of the trio snorted. "She's only got one arm!"

2E's eyes flicked to her stump of a right forearm. It always threw them off. Always. As if they'd never seen a living amputee in their lives. Without the Bunker to send down new arms and legs to the transport pods every day, it was no surprise they were becoming more common. Although then again, inside she knew she wouldn't replace her arm even if she could. It wasn't right. It was a necessary reminder.

The cloak flowed behind her like a cape as she broke into a sprint toward them. Her weariness, the desert heat, her exhaustion, they all faded with the afterimage behind her as she exploded to life in an instant. Immediately the three units took their combat positions, spreading out in an attempt to flank her as she ran straight up the middle toward them.

The leader had to go first. Without her, the others were scatterbrained. 2E drew back her blade across her left side and turned, ready for the reactionary strike. The other two closed in on her as she reached the group. The time for talk was over now. They were as good as dead.

Their leader swung first, a wide cut in an attempt to intercept 2E before she could attack at all. It was a defensive maneuver, and she saw it coming the moment the wind-up began. 2E dug in the points of her shoes, kicking up sand and gravel as she skidded to a stop before the frantic slices could come her away. Pivoting and taking a step forward, she jabbed outward to pierce the frightened woman's flesh.

But she refused to give in so easily. The combat unit dove to the side, perhaps unnecessary but it put some distance between the two of them. Immediately 2E was in her fencing stance, one leg cocked and jabbing the sword in her direction again and again. She'd learned quite some time ago that it wouldn't work on him, but it would still work on everybody else. Stubborn in her old ways even now that the world was on its head, it seemed.

9S. Someday she would see him again. What she would do when she laid eyes on him was beyond her, even now. But he still crossed her mind from time to time, and sometimes she attempted to smile. Never got that far, though.

Her enemy's blade came far too close to her cheek, so close she was able to feel the wind behind the cut on her face. Now was not the time for being distracted. In her trance, she'd gotten defensive and the unit had taken her opportunity to strike.

2E eyed the android's exposed midsection and her breath grew heavy in her throat.

A fatal mistake.

Delivering a swift sideways twisting kick, 2E nailed the leader right in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her and sending her stumbling a few steps back. Using her leg for momentum, to counterbalance the lack of weight on her right side, 2E kicked to the side and spun in a circle on the desert sand, kicking up dust as her blade cut through the air.

The leader was dead before she'd even had the chance to cry out in pain. 2E's sword cut right through her neck in one dragging stroke, sending a pagan ritual circle of blood spewing in all directions. The leader's head left her body and sailed a few feet before landing in the sand with a dull thud. 2E gave the headless torso a swift kick in the side to stop her momentum with an angry grunt in tow, knocking it over into a bloody pile.

Immediately, the other two stopped their approach. 2E held her sword at her side, staring down at the corpse as it gushed dark red onto the sand. The sneer on her face matched the dizzying boiling heat clouding her thoughts. Her knuckles grew white as she gripped the handle so tight it strained her glove.

"Oh, shit." One of the remaining two said, bringing her out of her thoughts. 2E slowly looked up, between the two of them, trying to figure out which one would be brave enough to try attacking first. She listened to the steady dripping of blood from the tip of her sword, like a ticking clock counting down to the explosion of a time bomb.

"Y-You..." The one on 2E's left stood rigid and angry. "You bitch! You're gonna pay for that!" She shouted, before taking her sword in both hands and rushing forward. 2E stared down her nose at the android, unmoving, as the unit gave a fierce battle cry. It was imposing, but not enough to shake her. Not in the heat of combat.

2E met her heavy overhead swing with a horizontal block, causing her to ricochet off and bounce backward a few steps. This new challenger had fury, but no strength to back it up. Endurance could be a useful trait in battle regardless. She recovered right away, of course, returning to 2E with a flurry of heavy attacks in an attempt to break her block. She held steady, skidding backward and digging in as the android attempted to force 2E toward her companion.

"Come on, come on!" The unit shouted at 2E, now overhwelmed by righteous vengeance, becoming faster and bolder and angrier. 2E put her stump flat against the end of her blade, attempting to wait for an opening though it was starting to seem more than a little bit in vain. The unit drew her sword back like a baseball bat and began to hack away at 2E's sword, likely in an attempt to shatter it and leave her defenseless. Her nostrils flared as she grunted in response- given the punishment it'd seen, it was a real possibility.

The answer, then, was simple. 2E watched as she drew back furious swing after furious swing, and then ducked as low as she could. She felt the blade slice the air just above her head, the momentum causing the android's body to twist involuntarily.

Another one down.

2E drove her sword upward and into the guts of the defenseless woman as she stood, wrenching it around to get her to drop her own weapon before it could be used for a counterattack. 2E pushed hard, coming face to face with the android who was now gurgling and screaming in fright. Her vision malfunctioning, static and blood and fear clouding it... her killer looked more like a demon than an android. That cold, calculated stare drove sharp nails of fear into her black box. Her legs quivered a bit as 2E gave her a hard shove, and then she fell over, off of 2E's weapon and into the waiting arms of death.

2E barely had time to gasp as the third attacker took a cheap shot- thankfully missing by mere inches. The shawl was rended with the sound of shredding fabric as she rolled to avoid the swing. A second more and her back would've been cut deep, possibly too deep. As she landed on her feet, 2E to face the coward who'd fumbled their attack of opportunity.

She was terrified, curled in like a cat ready to spring up at any moment. Her body was pushed as far back as possible, sword held straight out and visibly trembling. 2E let her own guard drop, cocking her head and squinting.

"Give it your best shot!" The last member of the group rattled off. "I'm not gonna die without a fight!"

But it was obvious to 2E and probably the android herself that it was far outside the realm of realism. She was downright quivering, and as 2E began to take lazy, stalking steps forward, she didn't move a single muscle. Petrified in place by the demon's gaze. That unfeeling, unshakeable leer. Piercing her flesh and armor and circuitry to the pits of her very central core. The ones and zeroes that made up her being, torn apart through sight alone by this creature that vaguely resembled an android.

Letting her sword fall to the sand, 2E twisted her shoulder and reached up to grab the android's wrist before she could finish winding up for a swing. Pushing against her and then yanking it forward with equal force, the woman's elbow gave an angry creaking resistance and then snapped in two, bending backwards and driving the sword from her open palm. 2E delivered a swift kick to the kneecap and shattered that as well, leaving the now-screaming android kneeling before her as if she were swearing her loyalty.

The hot desert wind rustled 2E's torn cloak as she stooped to pick up the unit's fallen sword, and before she could even get out the first breath of the word "Please", her head had left her shoulders and all that remained was a jagged bleeding stump. 2E watched the body cascade to the side, staring at it for far too long as the sweltering heat boiling her insides began to very slowly subside.

2E awkwardly looked around, turning in a slow circle as she observed the carnage she'd wrought. Two headless androids and one still twitching in the throes of death, all collapsed on dark orange sand soaked with blood. Grabbing her collar, she tore off the shawl and let it fall to the ground, revealing the glistening scars lining her torn clothes. This one she'd come away from without injury- the first in quite some time.

She stooped to pick up her still drenched sword, sheathing it at her side where it belonged. The brutality was over for now and she could continue on her way, to whatever miserable fight waited for her next. It was her third resonant signal of that day, with two more to go.

Walking away from the trio of corpses and attempting to not think about how brutal she'd been to them, she checked her heads-up display for more buzzing YoRHa activity. The new 9S' corpse had been equipped with top-of-the-line scanning technology- every time she saw his designation in the top right corner of her vision, it sent a rush of vibrating adrenaline down her spine.

Even if she never saw him again, she was still carrying him with her everywhere, in more ways than one. That gave her more solace than she cared to admit.

She pressed two fingers to her temple, starting up a call to the Bunker. It rang and rang as it usually did, the dull humming tone vibrating in a steady rhythm. The servers' connection was shaky these days, and it likely was not going to last much longer. A few weeks at most, and then it would be a thing of the past. Travel from the Bunker to Earth and back would only be possible via flight unit. Topographical data would become blanked out and unmarked. Transport pods would continue to function, but new parts for them would need to be sent down from the Bunker by hand. A single small change, and so many effects. All that information would stay up there in the Bunker's brain forever, never again to be passed down to the simple folk observing the shadows from their cave.

"Hello hello!" Came a cheery voice from the other end. Through the snowy static she could see 6O, looking as cheerful and bouncy as ever. How innocence survived even now, she would never be able to figure out. 2E supposed that already having known about the fate of humanity helped her somewhat. Maybe it was just in her programming.

Her voice was dry and coarse in response. "6O."

"Hiya, 2B! What can I do for you?" She said, grinning eagerly. It really was as if nothing had changed.

"I'm transmitting a couple of coordinates to you. Would you mind marking them on the map? It's being a pain today." She reached out and tapped away at her interface, sending the location of the signals to the Bunker. Before, it would've been instant, but she watched as 6O stared into space for a few seconds while the data transferred through clamped and gouged pipelines.

After a moment, her work was done. "Oooookiedoke, got it! I'll mark it down for you." She nodded, probably mostly to herself.

"Thank you." 2E said with a nod of her own.

Immediately 6O had her hands on her cheeks, gasping in what might have been awe. "What the! The cold fish 2B, thanking someone for their hard work? What has the world come to?!"

2E did not smile. "The world is ending, 6O, that's what it's come to."

"That's not a real cheery way of looking at things, 2B." She pouted.

"It's not." She agreed. "How are things up there?"

Immediately her face was bright again. "Are you coming back up? It's been so long! The Commander really wants to talk to you! Your room is probably getting soooo dusty!"

"6O."

"Um, right, sorry. It's really boring up here. The command center is so empty these days! There are only like a dozen operators left, all my friends went down to Earth with the latest batch of flight units." She sighed wistfully.

"When are you coming down?" 2E asked, wringing out her sore wrist and knuckles.

6O chuckled. "C'mon, 2B, you know I'm afraid of heights! And besides, if I came down there, who'd be up here to give you directions?"

2E nodded at that. "I suppose."

6O's cheery face suddenly vanished into a burst of static before being replaced with the much more stern look of the Commander. She looked annoyed as ever, though definitely more haggard lately. The havoc 9S had wrought on YoRHa had taken a chunk out of her and would never give it back, and for people who never aged, she sure did look a hell of a lot older with those sleepless bags under her eyes.

"2E, this is the Commander." She said, though it was mostly a formality- 2E could obviously see her already.

"Go ahead," 2E replied with a silent huffy sigh. 6O was so pleasant by comparison.

The Commander was to the point as usual. "You are to return to the Bunker on the next available flight unit rotation, is that clear? Your activities down on the surface need to be discussed."

"I already told you, I'm not coming back. If you want to talk, we can do it right here." 2E said, attempting for the sake of politeness to keep the disdain out of her voice. It clearly didn't work.

The Commander leaned in. "And I'm not giving you a choice. You are to cease your business before you cause any more destruction or face the consequences of insubordination."

"What consequences?" 2E stared holes in her HUD, at the Commander's disgruntled expression.

She sighed in response. "Stop acting like a child and heed my words. What you are doing is not right. You think you're delivering justice, but all you're actually doing is slaughtering my units. Your FELLOW units."

2E shrugged nonchalantly. "If they deserve to die, then I'm going to put an end to them. It's as simple as that, Commander."

She dryly laughed once. It was a pleasant, almost angelic sound, one she'd hardly ever heard. "And who are you to decide they deserve to die, 2E? Retribution cannot be left in the hands of one person. You used to put down androids who acted as you are now, remember?"

"I do." 2E said softly.

"Then stop pretending the world's fate is in your hands and get back to your assignment. I'm having 6O send you the coordinates to the desert location you are SUPPOSED to be observing."

"I'll do it when I feel like it." 2E said in her most defiant voice.

The Commander scoffed at that. "You really have changed. You do know that we're still at war with the machines, correct? Your sulking is not going to stop them from attending their little gathering."

"I realize that." She replied with a nod.

"Then get over there and find out what they're doing. Bunker out." The Commander said with an angry grunt, closing the connection before 2E could respond. Her map lit up with a new point of interest right away, not too far due north in an abandoned apartment complex. She had no interest in the machines or their business at the moment, but she supposed if it shut the Commander up it was worth getting out of the way while she was in the area.

Still a dog after all this time. She wondered what 9S would think of the compromise she'd found. Realistically, she could leave YoRHa any time she wished. They held no more power over her, especially now that their ability to resurrect fallen androids had failed them for the last time. The lack of spare parts in the transport pods had a knock-on effect: YoRHa units could now only be manufactured directly from R&D, and with the servers failing from lack of maintenance, the blueprints for YoRHa androids would soon be inaccessible. Death would finally, truly be permanent. It was a terrifying prospect, but one 2E had decided long ago to face head-on.

In the end, she hadn't the strength to leave YoRHa. She couldn't help but commend 9S for the bravery she wished she had, the willingness and determination to see change through. 2E was perfectly content to sit back and watch YoRHa slowly die, but she felt she'd earned her freedom.

As she stalked slowly toward the valley passage that would lead her to the apartment complex, she wondered if he would still hate her if he saw her now, knew what she'd been doing with her time. Maybe when they met again they would be enemies. If he still wanted to kill her, then so be it. She had already decided she would only die by his hand, nobody else's. She would not allow herself to die unless it was 9S' blade running through her. It was only fair. It was what she deserved. It was what they both deserved.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may have been wondering when in Automata's timeline this story actually takes place. I've been hinting at it for a little while now, a couple chapters at least, but here's where I will finally drop the hammer on it. This will be as close as Play Dead comes to the game's events, I don't have anything further planned from here. There will be one or maybe two more extra chapters to go, but this is all of the main game we'll be seeing for now. Maybe someday I'll expand on it, but for now, enjoy something familiar. As usual, leave a review and let me know what you think!

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**EXTRA CHAPTER #3**

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At least now 2E understood why 9S had done what he did. Before, she couldn't comprehend why he would betray YoRHa, what he stood to gain by hacking his way into their files. Why his curiosity just couldn't be sated until it was too late, over and over and over again. It hadn't dawned on her until he destroyed the organization entirely that she'd never attempted to think about it from his perspective.

She stared at her shoes as she walked, now lost in heavy thoughts. She'd known about the end of humanity for a very long time. It was 9S who'd revealed it to her, in a fit of anger. Initially she was taken aback, in disbelief... but after some thought, it made sense. Both the truth of the situation and YoRHa's deception. They needed that control over their soldiers, something for them to fight for.

Without it, they would feel no pressure to stick around, they'd have no reason to exist. 9S' singlehanded coup was perfect living proof. Now that the truth was common knowledge, YoRHa's forces had dwindled significantly. One of the essential parts of YoRHa's power over their troops was the ability to just remotely shut down any soldier, anywhere, at any time. But there had to be somebody to throw the switch. And now that liberation had come, android-kind had to forge its own destiny, and when it came to the choice of remaining the slave or seeking freedom... For most, it was pretty clear-cut.

When she looked back up, she'd made significant progress on her journey. Strange how such quick thoughts took so long to process. 2E found herself standing at the opening maw of a cave, passing through to the much more open and uncharted desert. Nobody outside of YoRHa knew how far these dunes actually went- they stretched far onward into the horizon and then some. Any android attempting to cross would surely dry up and die before reaching any safe haven. Certainly some had tried, otherwise how would they know how uninhabitable it was?

The mouth of the cave overlooked a very steep drop, pockmarked by cliffs jutting out awkwardly amidst concrete and steel rubble. Just beyond, a short walk away from the sheer cliff face, sat a mausoleum of identical buildings. An apartment block from the old world, half-buried and yet still stretching toward the sky like giant gravestones. Effigies to humankind's final desperate reach toward the stars. Ironically, they would already have been very long-gone before the first android would set foot in outer space.

She hopped away from the cliff, sliding once more down large piles of loose sand, watching the towering buildings get larger and more imposing as she approached. It would be cramped there, not much room to maneuver strategically. The simplistic AI of the machines would have them running directly at her and that would make it somewhat easier, but should she be surrounded... things might get rough.

2E found herself missing 9S' reconnaissance as she searched for an entrance to the labyrinth. Ever since the fall of YoRHa, she'd found herself cursing the limited scope of her programming more and more. She had his upgraded hardware, but was not a scanner herself, so most of its functionality was useless to her. She lacked some of the internal parts that differentiated a scanner and a battler, and thus she would always be much better at fighting than stealth.

A sense of nervousness began to stir at the back of her neck as she found her opening in the form of a small alleyway between buildings. The Commander had reported a pretty massive signal coming from this area, a collective of dozens or possibly even triple digits' worth of machines... and yet she hadn't seen a single one.

In her days working under YoRHa's thumb, she had no fear of the machines. They were simple, stupid childrens' playthings that could be cut through just as easily as the stomach of a fish. But the image of that zombie-like creature, about to turn her flesh and bones into mulch, still sat fresh in her mind even these many months later. The machines themselves were nothing to be scared of, but their lack of base inhibitions was what made them frightening. A machine would gut her in the most painful, horrible way imaginable and not feel a single thing. It would not think a single thought. It would not react in any way to chewing on her very entrails, as long as it was able to reach the black box it sought. And that was more horrifying to her than any revelation about humankind could've been.

2E found herself in the shadow of one of the buildings as she cut around a corner, scaling a small pile of sand that'd accumulated over the decades. Was this really all that was left of humanity? Just piles of rubble? It was sad, in a way, to know that it was all gone for good. On the other hand, though, maybe she should've been glad the humans didn't have to live to see the mess they'd created. And what a mess it was.

She perked up a little as the passages grew a little wider, into about the width of a city street. She supposed then that she'd found the main thoroughfare, or what used to be one before it was buried under the shifting dunes. Deep, distended veins carving a path through the labyrinth, to the treasure at the center. Of course, value was a bit subjective- she was pretty sure that whatever she was going to find here was in no way worth treasuring. But to the machines, she may very well've been walking in on a hoard of gold and silver.

And her shoulders sagged as she realized she may soon find out. A single machine stood at the other end of the street, clad in a ratty scarf and the dull wooden mask usually found on ones in the desert. Why they wore such strange clothes was beyond her- maybe some part of their programming that instilled a desire to emulate humankind. Either way, it was stock-still, possibly hoping she hadn't noticed it, trying to hide among the surrounding dull beige and gray buildings.

As she took a step forward, eyes locked on it, hand creeping toward her sword hilt, she could've sworn she heard it gulp in fright.

"They're here! Run! Run!" The thing shouted suddenly, hopping in place before about-facing and making a break for it. 2E didn't bother to pursue- it was just a single lone stubby after all -but couldn't help feeling slightly more unnerved. She watched it skitter away on the sand, bounding around a corner with its arms flailing almost comically.

She followed cautiously, hand still halfway across her body and still inching toward her weapon. It could've been leading her into an ambush, but based on how terrified it looked, she somehow doubted it. It wasn't like the thing actually felt fear, it was all simulated, but they certainly did a good job of acting like cowards. A single retreat for a single machine.

The buildings grew tighter-packed again as she followed its shuffling footprints in the sand. She could still hear it somewhere deeper in the concrete jungle, faintly shouting about how "they're coming" and "it's all over". Maybe it knew she was coming to kill them all. Machines had learned to fear androids over the years, but of late they'd had much less reason due to YoRHa's disorganization. She hoped their confidence wasn't returning- maybe that was what this little gathering was all about.

Another cave, this one in the form of a dingy sewer pipe surrounded on all sides and covererd by sand. 2E sighed. She felt a little uneasy walking through it, not quite ready to be buried alive forever just yet. That was arguably worse than just being killed- YoRHa units could survive being crushed by several kilos of pressure just fine, which had led to more than one android being trapped under sand or other rubble with no way out and no ability to self destruct. She'd heard horror stories. The thought made her shiver- and the grainy sand drifting lazily through cracks in the top of the pipe was not making her any more comfortable.

She thanked her lucky stars as she emerged on the other side unscathed. With a nod of resolve, she stepped out over the edge and took a look around. The tracks had led her to some kind of cylindrical hole in the sand. It seemed the buildings were so tightly compressed here or had fallen in just the right way so as to keep any sand from entering, creating a little pocket of sanctuary. Although given the surroundings, it couldn't really be called 'sanctuary' as such.

It looked like a warzone here, with crossbeams and steel jutting out as if she were standing inside the guts of a giant machine. Shattered glass and the remains of splintered wood dotted the edges in copious, dangerous amounts. Just below, to the sides, dangling from above- everywhere, really -were android corpses in frightening amounts. Dozens of them, ranging from realtively new to completely gouged to the point of being skeletonized. She supposed this was what her fate would've been if she'd died in the desert. Her olfactory sensors were going mad- the stench of burnt rubber and green corroded metal stung her nose something fierce. If hell was a real place, this little dingy hole certainly gave it a run for its money.

Down below she spotted her objective. Leaning over the side, she could see a relatively large group of machines doing... very strange things.

"Child. Child. Child."

"Love. Love. Love."

"Carry me. Carry me."

There was something eerie about their low-pitched, droning voices. They stood scattered around the pit, doing various things that were very not-at-all machine-like. One stood alone, incessantly rocking a seemingly homemade cradle. Another was writhing on the ground and begging to be fed like a child. Two others were walking in a slow circle, hand in hand, as if they were dancing. And all of them simple stubbies, wearing those blank-faced painted masks.

She cocked her head as she watched them go about their business, wondering what purpose they were trying to serve. Could they be mimicking human behavior? Could it be a bug in their neural network? Was there some AI quirk that drove them to emulate human speech, unable to comprehend what it actually meant? She glanced at two machines hopping against each other, bumping cylindrical crotches again and again with a dull metal 'clank'. Surely they had no idea what they were doing. Surely there was no way they could actually reproduce.

And, of course, she was standing a little bit too close to the edge. 2E's cocked head returned to being straight as a board when she heard the telltale clunking of metal footsteps behind her. Before she could whip around and draw her sword, however, she felt a flat machine foot on her rear end. Her heels slipped out from under her as it gave her a fierce piston-driven push, sending her over the edge of the building she stood atop and sprawling into the pit. As she tumbled head-over-heels she caught a glimpse of the machine that'd screwed her over, and though there was obviously no way to tell for sure, she could've sworn it was the same one that'd been running away from her.

She landed hard on her shoulder, falling too short to successfully turn around in the air, grunting in pain as she rolled a few times and then came to rest. Cursing under her breath, she slowly got to her hand and knees and was on her feet soon after, throwing up her fist and preparing for battle.

Immediately the gaggle of machines was at attention. They had abandoned their business and were slowly approaching en masse, trying to corral her into a corner. Slowly they marched, tightening the noose around her as she finally bothered to count the heads. One, two, five, ten, twenty, twenty-five... There were more than she'd noticed at first. Many, many more. There had to be. Were they coming from somewhere?

"Kill the android!" One of them yelled, already starting to spin up its arms in windmill circles.

"Kill! Destroy! Murder!" Another chimed in, reaching under its cloak to reveal a metal pipe, sharpened to the point of being a makeshift pickaxe.

There was a whoosh of air from above as the machine that'd given her the boot hopped down to join the mob. It landed with a heavy thud just in front of 2E and spun around, cape flowing gracefully as it gave her a furious point.

"I'll get you for this!" It shouted seemingly angrily, though in the same monotone as the rest of them. 2E grunted in annoyance, and then it'd been sliced into three or four red hot pieces by her sword. She gave it a kick to match the one it'd given her, knocking its combusting body into the crowd, and then all hell broke loose.

The machines mobbed her, surrounding her on all sides as the first explosion knocked them around like bowling pins. Sword making wide circles as she spun around, 2E tried her hardest to keep track of the group as it ebbed and flowed like a wave. Skittering back to avoid frantic swipe after swipe, she retaliated with low swings to chop them apart at the legs- They were easier to pick off if they couldn't move.

What they lacked in strength, they more than made up for in numbers, crowding her from the front and back as they practically climbed over one another to get a piece of her. She carved a path through the crowd, winding coiling circles around them like a hungry snake chewing through anything in its path. White-hot explosions shook the ground, threw sand everywhere as she kicked and sliced and stomped her way to the other side of the pit.

The shredded remains of her YoRHa dress flared out like a skirt as she spun in circles on her heel, sword held at arms length to cut through as many as she could possibly reach. Dozens of machines fell at her hands but they just kept coming, now crawling out of pipes and windows and holes lining the edges of the arena.

"This. Cannot. Continue."

She leapt forward, wrapping her legs around one of the taller standard machines, stabbing it several times in the head before pushing it away. The big brothers hand joined the fray, clomping around and trying to push past the shorter ones and get at her. More and more of the stubbies began to swarm, erasing her breathing room inch by inch.

"This. Cannot. Continue."

Slowly but surely they started to overwhelm her, scratching at her ankles as she did wide flips over their bobbing heads. Their makeshift tools would scarely pierce her flesh even if they swung with all their might but they were sure as hell trying anyway. Thankfully there was no possibility of locking blades with a machine, they'd just be cut apart like paper.

"This cannot continue."

Things were getting hectic now, with 2E struggling for purchase on the slippery sand. She ducked an angry punch from a taller machine, barely skimming the surface of her head as she knocked it into the air with an uppercut. Springing as far up as she could reach, she tackled its body in the air, sword held skyward, before driving it back into the crowd with a thunderous explosion.

"This cannot continue! This cannot continue!"

But she landed awkwardly on her knee and rolled, immediately being mobbed by a half dozen stubbies before she could get up. Suddenly having come here alone seemed like a very bad idea. 2E swung her sword wildly and backed up with her stumpy elbow, kicking away any hanger-ons and attempting to ignore the dull pain of their clawed hands swatting at her. But as her back hit a wall, she realized it was too late- she was trapped. Her breathing quickened as she shuffled to her feet, sword once again held at arm's length, eyes darting around in a bid for an escape route.

As if by fate or providence, she spotted her opening. A hole in the mob's defenses, marked by a lack of taller heads poking up out of the crowd. Readying her sword, she began to slice blindly ahead as she kicked off of the wall, cutting as wide of a path as she could. They followed, closing the gap as she went as if they were a liquid. Angry fists and makeshift weapons swiped at her as she went, and her breath left her as a wayward metal pipe swatted her straight in the back.

2E fought her way back up the cliff, fending off machines on both sides as she wound around the curving path back to safety. Eventually she stopped expending effort on killing them at all, instead shoving them hard with her shoulder to knock them down. There were far, far too many coming at her far, far too fast and she hadn't the strength to deal with it anymore.

They chased her up the winding path and over the hills of rubble, to the lone entrance she'd come through. She climbed over a disgusting pile of android corpses, kicking the bodies over as she went to slow the machines down. She stumbled as she reached the pipe she'd huddled through, but the split second of downtime gave her an idea that was sorely needed. Cramming the sword into the top of the pipe with a sharp, echoing, horrible sound, she grunted with effort as she trudged back up the slope. Crashing metal and sand followed her as she took heavy step after struggling step, sealing the passageway behind her and keeping the machines from escaping.

She dove out of the tunnel just as the pipe collapsed, leaving her sprawling on her stomach and groaning with dull, sore pain. What a nightmare. Coughing up dust and sand, she eventually bothered to roll onto her back, but refused to get up. She could still hear their rabid chanting on the other side of the walls, going on and on as if she hadn't even been present in the first place. Thankfully, they couldn't- or didn't -follow her.

Eventually she pressed her fingers to her temple, letting her sword loose for the time being, to report her findings.

"Hi, 2B!" 6O said as 2E's hud crackled to life. "Calling back so soon?"

"Urgghhh..." 2E groaned. "Put me through to the Commander."

"Sure thing!" 6O said, tap-tap-tapping away. "Um, are you okay?"

2E's voice was ragged. "I'm... fine."

6O's expression made it pretty clear she didn't believe 2E's words, but she vanished in a burst of static anyway, soon to be replaced by the Commander once again. Immediately she was sucking in a breath to chew 2E out, her eyebrows furrowed and frown deeply engraved.

"2E, did you have some sort of revelation of late? Are you enjoying disobeying my orders?" She asked, disgruntled.

2E shook her head, blinking dirt out of her face. "Whuh... What..? What?"

"You were to investigate the signal ALONE." The Commander emphasized, leaning in with shoulders hunched. "Or do I need to specify again that we can't spare extra reinforcments for every mission anymore?"

She pushed up into a sitting position on her elbows, still shaking her head dumbly. "I... don't understand."

The Commander squinted. "What do you mean you don't understand? 'Alone' means 'by yourself', as in, don't bring other androids to tag along on recon missions."

2E looked around as if she expected 9S to be sitting beside her, laughing off their narrow escape. When she saw nobody, she frowned in confusion.

"I... AM alone." She responded.

The Commander opened her mouth to speak, but then leaned off-camera and mumbled something to the nearest party. 2E didn't catch much, only a harsh request to scan again and report back to her.

After a moment, she returned. "Are you sure you weren't followed? We're picking up an additional android signal at your location. Almost directly on top of you as a matter of fact."

2E glanced at the collapsed pipe. She could no longer hear the machines and their rabid chanting- only the howling of wind and the occasional far-off crunch of some rubble somewhere in the mess of buildings.

The Commander's voice was suddenly marked with surprise. "It's gone."

"What? How?"

"I don't know. There's no way it was an error in the scan." She sighed. "Come back to the Bunker, you're going to have to debrief us on everything you saw here."

Immediately 2E was obstinate. "No."

"You don't have a choice, it's an order."

"NO."

The Commander was suddenly peering at 2E from beyond her nose. "Then I suppose we won't be able to send you the signal we intercepted from unit 9S while you were off doing your own business. There's just not enough bandwidth to spare."

2E's eyebrows rose. "What? 9S?"

The Commander was examining her nails. "Naturally. He is still a YoRHa unit after all, he uses the same communication frequencies as the rest of us. It's a shame, really, there was some interesting information there."

Shoulders heaving, 2E's breath grew labored. How very cruel of her, either to withhold such information she knew was so vital to 2E, or to lie about having it. The Commander knew very well that 9S' fate was all 2E cared about- all she could possibly care about at this point -and to dangle it over her head like this was simply despicable.

And so, 2E nodded. "Alright. But I won't stay long." She said, her voice dripping with venom as she willed her creaking bones to let her stand up. Sheathing her sword, she watched the Commander with glowering eyes as she folded her arms over her ample chest.

"Good," she said with a nod. "We'll send you the co-ordinates and a flight unit for pickup. Meet me in the command center when you arrive and we'll discuss the results of your investigation."

"Right."

"See? It's not so hard to get what you want when you co-operate, 2E. You should remember that. Bunker out." And with that, she was gone. 2E's already-clenched hand was tightening into a shaking fist. The urge to cut the Commander's head from her shoulders and damn the consequences was rising, but she suppressed it as usual. The last thing she wanted was to throw YoRHa into even more chaos.

Slowly, staggering, still out of breath and aching all over, 2E began to make her way out of the labyrinth of buildings. She was tiring of the claustrophobia anyway, annoyed beyond belief and distraught. Her thoughts were laser-focused on 9S as she trudged. She was going to have a discussion with the Commander, alright. Even if it was with weapons drawn. As she marked the path to where her red carpet was being rolled out to, she let her thoughts drift away from her impending murder at the hands of machines, and toward what her first words to 9S would be when she saw him next.


End file.
